At 3 a.m., I sat straight up in bed…
Suddenly wide awake, I realized my heart was pounding, my mind racing. Our family has been going through some tough stuff behind the scenes (who isn’t?), and as I hurried from my bed to splash water on my face in the bathroom, and then back to my bed, and then to the window, and then basically in circles, I realized I was in the middle of a full-blown panic attack.
I grabbed my phone from the closet and dialed Freddie. “Jo?” he said, as if from a dream.
“I’M FREAKING OUT,” I said, my eyes wild and searching. “Will you ask me questions to calm me down?”
“Yes!” he replied, without skipping a beat. “What are your favorite fruits in fruit salad?” Now, as I write this, the question makes me laugh, but at the time, it felt like an absolute life raft.
“Cantalope,” I said. “Grocery stores put in too much, but I like some.”
“What else?” he asked. “Berries?”
“Strawberries, yes, but not raspberries.” I said. “Maybe apples? My mom puts in sliced banana, which is better than you’d expect.” Suddenly, my heart leapt back into my throat, and, while pacing around the bed, I raised my voice: “What else? Freddie, please ask me something else.”
“What’s Anton reading in school right now? A Raisin in the Sun?” he said. “What’s that about? Who are the characters?”
So, I told him about the 1959 play by Lorraine Hansberry about a family in Chicago. Then he asked me to walk him through my childhood house, and tell him the cultural differences I’ve observed on Love Is Blind: Italy. (I had THOUGHTS.) By the time we hung up, an hour later, I was back in my body and could breathe normally once again.
Now, while I work and pay bills and ferry my children to school and back, I keep thinking of Freddie today, standing at the front of his classroom, explaining the American Revolution to his high school students, maybe sneaking in a yawn now and again, rubbing his dry eyes, preparing to return home to tend to his own two children at the end of the day. As I picture him, with salt and pepper hair, tired but steady, I realize that, somehow, “what fruits do you like in fruit salad” at 3 a.m. is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me. This is love; what a gift.
Have you ever woken up like this? How do you calm yourself when your mind starts spiraling? Nothing like that has ever happened to me before!
P.S. An anxiety trick, and two fruit salad recipes. 😉
(Photo by Evan Dalen/Stocksy.)
