Anxiety

It is not a secret that I do not like driving. In fact, I am scared of driving. First I just didn't like driving. Then about a year and a half ago I got into a small car accident, but it was rather traumatizing for me.

Since then I have been trying to ween myself back into driving - and to driving long distances. I figure while I am here in Charlotte, North Carolina, where driving is a necessity, I should just grin and bear it.

Yesterday, I drove to Atlanta (a four hour drive) and back. No, I didn't just drive down for fun. For an upcoming exhibition/screening, there was a meeting. So I drove.

I left at about 8:15 am, who knew that I could actually get up that early on a Sunday? I met some friends for lunch and then headed to the meeting. On my way back I got stuck at about a stand still for an hour - a pick-up truck was overturned. The commotion took up 4 of the five northbound lanes. No, that didn't really frazzle me. I was just glad I hadn't left earlier.

I get frazzled when I can't see, or feel as though I can't see; this usually happens at night or in the rain - or worse: in the rain at night. I feel as though there isn't enough light and I can't see the twists and turns of the road in front of me - even the slight bends. Therefore I follow people - even if I have to speed, because I am too scared to be on the highway panicking that I can't see where I am going with cars whizzing by me. I think I had at least 5 mini-panic attacks after dark.

So the point of this post is that I took pictures (during the daytime), while I was driving, to get my mind off of it. I know that sounds like a significantly ridiculous strategy: take pictures while driving so that you don't panic - but it seemed to work well, even if it doesn't sound that safe.

I took some simply non-exciting, non-pretty images. I tried to get the sunset in the mirrors as I drove east. This was more about the act than the result. I was just using my point and shoot, so it isn't like I (a) had a lot of control or (b) had to do more than press a button. It was challenging though.

I don't recommend that people take pictures while driving. I certainly don't recommend that you do it at night (I might have if I could have changed the flash mode to "off" while I was driving, that made me nervous).