While on my way to work the other day, I was sitting at a stop light when I started to hear some kind of high-pitched…noise? Music? Birds? I shut off my audio book and listened more closely. I looked in my rear view mirror and realized it was the driver in the white truck behind me. She was screaming.

She wasn’t singing. She wasn’t talking loudly or yelling at someone. She was screaming. I think there were some words being pushed through, but I couldn’t make them out. She did flail her arms a few times, but not at anyone in her vehicle or at me. It was absolutely unsettling.

Once the light turned green, I drove forward and she stayed behind me for a short time, but wasn’t keeping up. Once she turned off, I took a deep breath and eased it out.

It was an unpleasant way to start the day. It seemed to set the tone of my morning, until it dissipated by noon. But I can’t stop thinking of this woman.What happened to her?

Was she screaming because life was hard and she was feeling helpless and just didn’t know what to do next? Was she screaming at the ghost of her lover who has left her with a pile of debt AND no way to pay for a funeral? Or was she just letting off some steam to help her keep moving forward in this batshit-crazy world, and as soon as she got out of the truck she’d start singing “Shake It Off”?

I cry often in my car, but only scream on dire days. And since I live in a rural area, I can scream in my car and no one will see me nor would they hear those tinny, ear-piercing sounds that can come from a grief howl. And now that I know what it can do to others, I’m glad people can’t hear it.

But I haven’t screamed in a very long time. Right now it just seems like an exhausting task. I’m not sure what to make of that. I’m too tired to express my grief and rage?

Yeah. I guess I am.

Do you ever scream or yell in your car? Or outside? Or in your home?

I don’t know why the woman in the truck was screaming, but I hope she found some relief from it. And I really hope she’s ok.

I hope you are, too, friends. I hope you’re more than ok. 💜