The Anxiety Truck

I took a drive one beautiful Spring afternoon. Speeding down the road, my window down, relishing the perfectly crisp, nectarous air, I savored the rushing wind and changing scenery as I zipped by all the trouble in the world. Happy music bounced out of the speakers.

But then I came around a curve in the two lane highway, and a creeping truck ahead, rumbling obnoxiously along in front of me, caused me to slow. I came right up on it, impatient and resentful. It belched thick and oily black smoke that clung to my nostrils and darkened the blue sky, the smell blotting out nature’s fragrance, contorting my face into an unpleasant, contemptuous expression. The truck’s engine wheezed and gargled, overwhelming the happy tune. I turned up the volume, which added to the stress by making the music too loud.

Frantic to get past, to keep the happy momentum going on this afternoon, I let my vehicle drift just far enough into the other lane to peek around in search for an opening in the oncoming traffic to pass, and then fell in, frustrated by traffic. I was stuck.

The moments passed and I felt greater intensity to escape this beast, to regain that pleasant moment. My grip tightened on the steering wheel and I felt rage that I couldn’t resume the carefree road trip. Was Spring gone forever?

When a break in traffic allowed me to finally get around, I resumed my speed, adjusted the volume, settled back in. A few short miles later, I came across a line of cars stopped in front of a construction crew. A stoic figure with a hard hat held a Stop sign in front of a closed lane. And then there the truck was, right behind me. I felt like the man in the Steven Spielberg movie, Duel.

I felt hunted. The construction crew eventually moved us along, but the highway was reduced to one lane and I was doomed to creep along so slowly that the truck’s fumes drifted forward, ruining the spring air. I couldn’t escape.

Anxiety is like that. Pleasant Spring air abounds, the call of the open road tugs at me, flowers bloom. But anxiety clamorously forces its way in, polluting my life.

I’ve tried living in other countries. I’ve tried starting my own business. I’ve tried going back to school. The anxiety truck is always just around the corner.

There is nothing good about anxiety. It serves no useful purpose. It takes away joy and imposes fear. It drives me out of the present and into some distant realm of imaginary fights for my life and fantasies of the future when I will live in peace.

And it is pure evil. We tend to think of evil as something blatant and hulking, like a smoke stack at a Nazi concentration camp. But evil often shows up as a much more subtle force, small enough that we don’t notice any need to defend against it.

I couldn’t escape the truck on that afternoon. The road eventually widened after several miles, but now a new variable emerged to prevent escape from the truck, but I found that I had options to keep a little distance from it so that its smell didn’t get me, and its noise didn’t intrude on me. I surrendered to the reality that I couldn’t outrun it, and instead maintained my course, always keeping my distance, letting the scenery draw my eyes to it instead of letting the truck distract me.

I can’t escape anxiety, but I can find ways to keep a little distance. Never far behind, the Anxiety Truck rumbles along without causing panic or forcing its noxious pollution to crowd out life’s blue sky and nature’s blossoms.