I Worry, A Lot.

This is where I dropped my Dad’s ashes and don’t let the carefree smile fool you.

His sickness and eventual death was only the beginning of my worries.

I’m reading a fourteen-question quiz to determine if I am a worrier.

I answer yes to question number one and already I’m worried.

By question three I’m breaking a sweat.  I’ve answered with a resounding yes to five questions in a row and figure it would just be redundant to finish the quiz.

It’s official.  I worry.

This is what happens when your dad dies when you are just a young tyke.

I was twenty and the mother of a small child but I was still just a young tyke myself.  I had gone from worrying about how to get to my eight A.M. class in my second year of college to worrying about how I was going to buy formula or when I would get off welfare and was my Dad going to be alive for his next birthday.

Then Dad got really sick.  Every day my mind would race about when he would die, what would I do, how would I feel, would he be sad, and could I work my tongue around the words I love you?

Then he died.

Then my roommate died of meningitis.

Then my mom’s best friend died at dinner in front of  her.

Then my son got hit by a car.

And here I was in my house – supposed to protect my son and myself from the dangers that were everywhere.  All of a sudden the world was fraught with danger and troubles and death and hurt feelings and broken hearts.

So am I a worrier.  Just a tad.

I skip the questions in the article and move onto the solutions.

There are four and I’m worried I won’t have time to read them before I head off to work 45 minutes early because I am always worried I will be late.

You should see me at the beach.  When my kids were little I stood between them and the ocean, every muscle taut and ready to sprint into action.  I wasn’t sweating because it was 10,000 degrees out, I was sweating because the waves had gotten higher then my ankles.  And even though my twenty year old outweighs me by fifty pounds and has a good five inches on me, I still watch him body surfing as if I might have to run out at any minute and drag him by the neck to safety.

I am not afraid to do it people.  I am just afraid it might actually happen.

It must be genetic.  The other day my brother Pete told me to watch out for black ice and chicken bones, all in the same sentence and he can’t even go to the beach with kids; way to fretful.

Back at the article, I peruse the advice.

1) Recognize you’re worrying and jot it down when a worry crosses your mind.

I don’t have the strength to carry around a five-inch binder.  By Tuesday I would have a novella, not gonna happen.

2) Do a reality check.

My reality involves pulmonary embolism, skin cancer, brain cancer, alcoholism, meningitis, RSV, brain aneurisms, suicides and many other unmentionables.  I think reality is NOT the best place to start.

3) Make a plan, it gives you a handle on the situation.

Now this I can sink my teeth into.  I love a plan.   So I plan to have a six pack in my frig every night so when the day fraught with danger comes to an end I can ease my racing mind with a couple of cool ones: Check.

4) Relax your body and mind, by breathing for five minutes.

Breathing for five minutes, hell, I’d probably hyperventilate.

It’s something I am aware of.  It’s something I don’t want to pass onto my children.  When I can, I bite my tongue, swallow my warnings and do something completely reckless and dangerous.

Great, so now my children won’t be bit by the worry bug but they will be manic, just like their mother.

“Don’t worry be happy,” says my husband who thinks worry is a wasted emotion.

“How about I’ll worry AND be happy?” I say, cracking a beer.

It’s the best I can do, considering the circumstances.