Why hello there, friends. First, I want to say “thank you,” sincerely, to those of you who’ve commented here recently. Replies are forthcoming. Late, but better that than never.

Secondly, this post is not any of the ones I’d thought I might write. I actually have a list of things to share with you, fitness being the major one, as I’ve been on track and well on my way to restoration. A fitness update post hovers in the wings! There are various others, but today was not a day that allowed for such writings. I ate lunch after a busy morning and then immediately left for a medical appointment.

Let me be clear: I didn’t think I would write this ever, because I never thought I’d actually spend moments in an elevator such as those in which I found myself today.

If you know me, then you know that the elevator is the foe I’d never want to meet in an alley. My PTSD-driven phobia has abated gradually over the years; I can now step into an elevator by myself, though I’m still and will always be a fan of taking the stairs. In the absence of stairs, I’m capable of entering an elevator more or less gamely, cajoling myself and breathing.

Hands down, the best elevators are the ones in which I’m not alone. If stairs aren’t an option and there’s no one around needing an elevator, I’m forced to be brave, and that is what happened today. I found myself shrouded in ominous solitude, needing to get down from the fourth floor of a building in mid-town Phoenix. 

It was an old building with an old-timey elevator, and not to be ageist or anything, but that old-ass elevator had seen better days. It was small. It exuded a cranky vibe that bristled the skin over my spine the second I boarded it. I didn’t like it, and it didn’t like me, and it let me know. The door closed behind me, and the elevator began its descent. Then it paused.

I waited.

I held my breath while listening hard, imagining that I could hear a faint creaking noise.

Scanning the operation panel, I found the Door Open button and briefly considered pressing it, but drew back into myself in horror at the idea of the elevator door opening to reveal cables and a wall, because as much as I admire Edgar Allen Poe, I couldn’t be charmed into submission by any measure of third-person gothic dread the idea might inspire. The reality was that I was not strolling moodily through the damp, gas-lit streets of nineteenth-century Philadelphia in predawn darkness. I was trapped inside a wizened and rickety old elevator, and no amount of romanticism was going to change that. 

At last, the elevator resumed its grumpy descent with a creak and a jolt, pulling me from my thoughts and moving, I thought, rather slowly. Alarmingly slowly. When it finally stopped at the first floor, it didn’t open its doors. It sat there. 

Again, I listened, but heard no sounds of acquiescence on the part of the elevator. The elevator was sullen. It had clammed up, and I was inside, alone with my panic and my rue. As if by divine intervention, the door opened just as the walls closed in around me. I lunged over the threshold and jaloppied myself into the lobby, lurching down the short hall, out the door, and into my car, which I’d parked in front of the building’s entrance. I fell dizzily into the driver’s seat, just then realizing that I’d been holding my breath.

Friends, I am never going to take that particular elevator again… at least, not alone.

Here’s my proof of life:

So I guess I’m not as over my elevator phobia as I’d thought I’d been. Huh.

At any rate, I’m heading off to bed. Stay safe and do not think unkindly of elevators, my friends. They can hear your thoughts and smell your fear.