"fear is a fact of life everyone faces from time to time. in most cases fearis a healthy reaction to a dangerous situation. but sometimes fear can be so extreme, so overwhelming, that it interferes with normal living. that is what happened to me driving cross-country last summer. 

i’d agreed to help my brother, mac, move from the east coast to california. he would drive a rental truck loaded with his belongings and i would follow him in his sedan, then fly back. we figured it would be a simple trip, with four or five motel stops along the way. 

living and working in coastal georgia for most of my life, i did not have a great deal of long-distance driving experience. looking back on it today, i can see that i’d always felt a twinge of fear when driving over small bridges and along hilly highways. and as i was getting ready for the trip i had a vague concern about the steep mountain roads that lay ahead. but i thought i would get used to them. 

as we crossed some high bridges near the blue ridge mountains on the first leg of our trip, a kind of breathlessness gripped me, a sinking, rolling sensation in the pit of my stomach. i tended to veer slightly away from the edge of the roadway and the drop-off beyond. my knuckles whitened from my tense grip on the steering wheel. at the end of each bridge, a great rush of relief would come over me, only to be replaced in short order by fear of the next obstacle. 

when we stopped in nashville the first night, i mentioned my feelings to mac, who is the practical sort. "oh, that’s nothing," he said cheerfully . "lots of people hate driving on mountain roads and high bridges. just turn up the music on your radio and focus on that. keep your mind occupied."