Not Yet

This is a picture of the 50 year old 35W bridge after it collapsed (click on link to see video) on August 1, 2007 during the height of rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring 145 more. Just days before I had been over this bridge several times, going to and from the airport and in and out of town. I'm so glad I didn't have business on this day to go over the bridge for.

Amazing how a bridge falling down can gridlock the phone system. People from out of town tried calling into the state, only to find their calls could not be connected. Imagine what will happen if we have a tragedy on even a bigger scale.

The new bridge opened the morning of Thursday Sept 18.

I was down in the area this morning, but my GPS didn't know it was opened and took me around it, so I have yet to go over the new white beautiful bridge. My parents from Utah went over it before I have! I did drive next to it, and it is beautiful and hopefully very sturdy.
While I was in the cities I had to go into a business that had a very steep and narrow spiral staircase. I had my two little girls with me and we had to climb this thing, thankfully only one story. But that one story up and down made my stomach twist into knots. I then realized that my fear of drowning is outweighed by my fear of falling. I've always had a difficult time when I'm close to a ledge, and I absolutely HATE having my children near them as well. My stomach starts hurting and I get a strange unpleasant feeling inside. When Jake was little we would visit Taylor's falls and walk around on the rocks. He was a clumsy kid, always falling, and it was literally painful for me to watch him walking around on the rocks even within 10 feet of a ledge. My husband doesn't understand that and would roll his eyes at me, "nothing's going to happen". Whatever, it still gives my stomach pains. My next husband will understand ;)

Anyway, I'm glad the bridge is open, but there is a lot of psychological effect on me to this day from that. I've always hated being under bridges and assumed it was my claustrophobia that contributed to that, such as when you have a stop light ahead and cars are stopped clear back under a bridge. But now I hate even driving across most bridges. I don't think I'd be able to drive my old route anymore that I took to work. Most mornings I was stopped on a bridge that would bounce up and down as trucks roared across it. I'm certain I couldn't sit on that bridge in my car ever again.

Julie's drowning has affected me with rivers now. Joel doesn't understand that either. When we were camping, I couldn't bring myself to wander down the path to a dam over a river. My chest fills with panic and fear. It's a really uncomfortable feeling.
So here are my biggest fears in order...

1. Being eaten/or one of my children being eaten by a bear (my husband doesn't get this one either)
2. Falling
3. Drowning
4. Losing my purse (This is probably the only fear my husband understands)

And now you know. And I didn't mean for this to be a "husband doesn't understand me" post, it just turned out that way.