Elevator Exercise

Elevators made me really nervous as a kid. Whenever I would enter a full elevator I had the sinking feeling, the anxiety, that it would come crashing down, that it would get stuck, that something disastrous and devastating would occur, because in my head, I thought elevators were held up by wires as thin and breakable as strands of hair.

I haven’t thought about this childhood fear in ages; in fact, I thought it was just something that phased out of my life, like many things do, until I recently spent nearly 30 minutes in the Lo Schiavo elevator on USF’s campus.

This elevator is gray. All gray. Metallic gray, gray tile, gray shine, gray buttons, gray ceiling, gray floor, gray walls, gray doors. I spent some time adamantly pressing the ground floor button and third floor button, riding between the four floors of this unfortunately short building. At first, I felt insightful. People just come and go in life, was one thought, I never really noticed handlebars in elevators until now, was another. I started feeling like I was on a ship and decided to stop pressing buttons and just stand in the idle elevator.

Suddenly the elevator lurched and I jumped forward towards the panel of buttons on the wall. I had created a plan in my head that if someone on the outside requested the elevator, I would have to press a button before the elevator reached whatever floor they were on—so it seemed as if I had a destination and wasn’t just loitering. However, no one had requested the elevator. It was just one of the natural rumbles that occurs within this machine, this contraption. I didn’t realize until that moment how jumpy I was.

Twelve minutes in and the dimmed but jarring lights feel like they’re glaring at me. I notice the heat behind my neck, right below the collar of my sweater; I feel as if I’m in a microwave that isn’t on but just being warmed by the heat of the lamp inside. My palms are unbelievably warm and clammy. Fifteen minutes in, I’m nauseous, I’m light-headed, and I feel the need to get out. I check my phone and notice a missed call—I have been rescued. I return the phone call. Suddenly, over the phone, I’m joking, I’m smiling, I’m having a great time conversing—and I don’t feel isolated anymore in this motionless microwave.  

Right before thirty minutes neared, I hung up the phone and stepped out of the metal trap—the air was cool, there was so much space to walk, so many different colors that weren’t gray. How could I forget there’s a whole world outside of that damn elevator? I felt like a free woman.