Worry, What is it Good For?

 Absolutely nothing!

The weeks whiz by and I don't accomplish as much as I should.  Here we are in mid-October already; hard to believe.  I'm on the verge of, if not depression, at least a downturn in the optimism department, if that makes any sense.  Anxiety has been gaining the upper hand at times, and I have to work hard to keep it at bay.  

Looking back on my past history, I have always and ever been a worrier.  Worry about this, worry about that, and for what?  I've written about this before, I know, but I still have not reformed. 

 Sometimes I picture a mythical 'Worry Bank'; an imposing, forbidding, dark granite building with bronze doors and a marble staircase to gain entrance; everything about the building is cold and hard, just like the anxiety I deposit in the vault.  Making these deposits doesn't help at all, even if in some perverse way I think stockpiling them will benefit me.  My silly thoughts run along these lines; by worrying about every possible outcome of every possible scenario, I'll be 'covered' and protected from catastrophe somehow.  After fifty-nine years of living, I should know by now, we can never, ever predict the future.

Case in point, the other day I was in the bathroom trying to put my socks on standing up.  Yes, I'm a rebel.  I do this quite often and have never had a problem in the past, but as fate would have it, I lost my balance when I was putting on my left sock.  Tipping over sideways towards the shower, my first instinct was to catch myself on the wall, but I missed the wall completely and hit the shower curtain instead, continuing to fall until my arm hit the far wall of the shower stall.  The side of the bathtub almost took my feet out from under me, but being a tad tall, I won the battle and retained my footing.  
  
After the flailing ended, I stood up, dusted myself off, and checked for broken body parts.  Thankfully, there were none, not even a bruise, but it could have ended much, much worse.  I was lucky this time.  This was definitely one scenario I had never worried about before; now this could lead to more frenzied 'What If?' worries, but I won't go there.  At least I'm trying not to.  

Ironically, Carl and I met an acquaintance at a meeting this week who rolled up to me on a cart with her leg in a soft cast.   She had  slipped in the shower hitting her head twice in the process.  Being  unable to get up because she has had knee replacements, she would have been in deep trouble, but luckily her husband was home to help her.  Once she was back on her feet, she realized her foot was broken, so off to the hospital for a cast which then caused her to break out in a rash over her entire body, hence the soft walking cast and rolling cart.  

Yikes!

I didn't ask her, but I just bet she never worried about something like this happening to her, either.   

Sometimes I think this is fodder for Stephen King to write horror stories about; there are rarely big, green monsters lurking to nab the unsuspecting; no, it's the small, every day hazards we usually navigate with nary a thought which are really and truly dangerous.  Trip on the stairs, fall in the shower, cut yourself on a broken glass washing dishes; the mundane tasks of living and being on autopilot can be hazardous to your health.

Speaking of health:  I have a followup with my retina specialist this week Friday.  The Thirteenth.  I'm not superstitious, but sigh, really? What was I thinking when I made that appointment?  My eyesight has not diminished as far as I can tell, but the floaters are about the same.  I can live with them, but the macular degeneration possibility he'd mentioned back in June looms like the big, creepy monster in Mr. King's novels, waiting in the dark for an unsuspecting me to bump into.   

I joined an online support group for macular degeneration after the first appointment.  The group is wonderful and has a lot of information, but I found I had to unsubscribe from the feed because I couldn't handle the constant reminder of what is possibly in store for me.  I don't want to bury my head in the sand, but I'm throwing away precious days of fairly good sight in anticipation and dread of losing what I have had up until now.  

Which brings me to another ironic incident: I remember when I was newly married and had mentioned to a rather bitter coworker how close I was to Carl, how we did almost everything together, and how much I loved and depended on him.  She was married, but apparently not happily, and I suppose my rosy picture of marital bliss was wearing on her last nerve.   

"You'd better take a hard look at your life.  What are you going to do if he leaves you for another woman or gets killed in an accident or gets sick and dies?  You should put some distance between you, otherwise you're going to be a hot mess if something happens.  You take my advice, don't stay so close, don't be stupid.  Make a life for yourself. It will hurt like hell when it ends."

All righty, then.

Those words of wisdom were imparted to me almost forty years ago, and what if I'd taken action then?  What if I'd put some distance between us, held my husband at arm's length so I wouldn't get too attached?  Look at the time and love I would have wasted.  Of course, I will be devastated when we have to part, and it could happen at any time, but in the meantime, am I to be an anxious, nervous wreck, trying hard to protect myself from the inevitable pain of losing the love of my life?  

According to quotes I've read over the years, Worry is: the thief of joy, the misuse of the imagination, a wasted emotion, useless.  And paralyzing.  

I don't know how I'll cope if my eyesight does indeed deteriorate or I contract some deadly disease, or if an accident happens and I lose all that I love.  I do not know. 

In the time Mom lived with us, those short months, we had many conversations about death and Heaven.  We had a few ministers come to the house to read her bible passages and she always sat and listened politely.  Mom believed in God, but she was in no hurry to die.  After they left, I asked her if she enjoyed having the bible read to her, and she said, "They are good people.  They mean well."  I know what she meant.  

When faced with her mortality, she wasn't terrified, she was never a worrier, but she was uneasy.  

A few days before she died, she said, "I cannot imagine what heaven must be like, can you?  How big it must be to have all those people there!    Surely it must be full by now, just think of all the people in the world who have died.  And I'm so short, how will I ever see anything when I get there?"

"I don't know, Mom.  But I think Heaven is a vast place, I really do.  Look at the stars at night, there are so many in the sky.  There will be room for you, I just know there will, and you won't be short any more.  You'll be able to see everything."

She smiled. I don't know if it gave her any comfort.  We were just two women staring at the unknown and hoping.  Did I love her any less, and harden my heart because we were to be parted soon?  No.  Mom lived her life one day at a time.  She always made the best of everything, good and bad.  I do believe that is how she lived to be ninety-six years old; she refused to be stressed by things she could not control.  She did the work in front of her and even when her eyesight failed, did the best she could with what she had left, painting pinecones mere hours before she passed away.

Mom lived her life.  

I saw this quote and had to admit how much this sounds like me:

“People get so in the habit of worry that if you save them from drowning and put them on a bank to dry in the sun with hot chocolate and muffins they wonder whether they are catching a cold.”
– John Jay Chapman

How true!  

And:
 “The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.” – Robert Frost

 Ok, enough worrying.  Now I'm off to work!