Blog's Inspiration and Molehill or Mountain?

The inspiration for this blog came from realizing how many times the tiniest act changed the entire course of my day. In the spirit of brevity, I will stop the explanation there. The following, is story number 1. We shall call this story: Molehill or Mountain?

Molehill or Mountain:

I work as a mental health counselor and often my work takes me into the field. On this particular day, I was traveling to a hospital near Echo Park. I googled directions and went on my merry way. Google did not feel it was necessary to inform me that I would be traversing the slopes of southern California to get to the hospital. And why anyone would build a road that goes over a hill is beyond me...but I am getting ahead of myself.

The freeway was clear and I was singing to myself. I get off the freeway and follow directions closely because I am prone to getting lost for hours and ending up in cities that do not even border my desired destination. Suddenly, I find myself at the bottom of a very steep hill. I am in one of the more...crusty...work vehicles that is known to squeal and squeak and display warning messages at random. I take a deep breath and begin lugging a few thousand pounds of metal up the hill, praying all the while. At one point in time another car appears on the thin road coming toward me and I pull over to let him pass. It is a man in a rusty utility truck and he waves a thank you.

I am now in the middle of the upward slope and I have to give the car a fair amount of gas to keep from rolling, butt first, to my imminent death. I reach the hill and feel successful. I look at my directions and they tell me to continue to drive straight. I begin to do this and realize that I do not see any road in front of me on which to drive straight. I look down and see blue sky and trees...but no road. My powers of deductive reasoning tell me that this road was built on a veritable hill...one side goes up, the other goes down (not sure why I didn't think of this while going up the hill-would have taken other route). I, being afraid of heights, start to hyperventilate and wonder out loud how I'm going to live through this and why in the world someone would build a road like this! I dramatically think about how many people have died on this road but do not notice any bodies lying around. I realize that my two options include blindly driving down a very steep hill or going backwards down its less steep but nonetheless frightening other side.

I'm just starting to cry when a man appears from a tiny (and presently unreachable) sidestreet. We'll call him Blond Man in Yellow Shirt, BMYS for short. BMYS shows me a tiny 15 second act of love and helps me conquer a 23 year old fear. He pauses his car, gives me his biggest smile and a thumbs up and shouts (I assume he shouted because I cannot hear him-both our windows are up...maybe he mouthed it. Who knows. I imagine he shouted, though...anyway...)"YOU CAN DO IT!!!!" I nod and one little tear falls. He nods his head encouragingly and I grab my steering wheel and drive down that mountain. My car groans in protest and I have to keep my foot pressed firmly on the brake to keep the car from gaining too much momentum.

I make it to the bottom 45 very scary seconds later and find myself in very pretty scenery. Feeling accomplished, I tell myself that driving over that molehill wasn't so bad! Then I turn around and see the big wall of gray divided by a dotted yellow line (Sidenote: DOTTED LINE!?!?! WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD EVER PASS ANYONE ON THAT ROAD??)and make a mental note to find another route back to the office.

I say a small prayer of thanks for the lovely man who took 15 seconds to demonstrate love and encourage a girl whose name he'll never know.