This morning I woke up at 4 wide awake, heart pounding. I wanted to blame the tabby or the acorns falling on the roof in the heavy rain. But I know its something else. Today the contractors come to knock out my shower and begin a demo of my grungy, 25 year old bathroom. I haven't picked out tile, I don't know how to turn off the water, and when I think about the day ahead (cats and I huddled in my spare room, me trying to work while the walls come down around me), let's just say the anxiety is off the charts.


Then, I read my sister's post and some of it dissapates. We are worriers, it's what we do. Some of it is completely out of our control, which means that we can let it go and just focus on breathing through it all. I'm not going to say it doesn't suck ass, or that I don't lie awake some nights wishing I had this inner peace of someone born to a family that told them everything would be OK until they actually believed it. Instead, we have this. Why do we never feel good enough or brave enough?
I wish I were in a place to give advice to both of us. Feel the fear and do it anyway. When you are going through hell (or even just a little darkness because a contractor knocked out your lights, which is not really hell at all), keep going. Fear is a prison.
Knowing this, cool: applying it....whoa. Life is like a carnival ride but motion sickness comes to us as we grip too tight to the cold metal bars when the car starts making it's way down the track. We can't see the safety knobs.
Instead, we write. We take photos and make plans to go back to nature. It is the church given to us by our dad. We tell ourselves that everything is going to be OK, even if we might not really believe it.
And I can say that there is some success to this. A year ago my life was different.I had friends who didn't feed my soul, and I could tell you the names of the TV shows for each night of the week. I didn't keep my promise to the Universe, made on a running trail the prior year, until suddenly I had no choice.
This year I am calmer, surrounded my better friends and less cable channels. I notice things.
Right now I am sipping coffee and listening to a moth hit the sides of my paper lamp as a soft cat sleeps next to my laptop. The tabby jumps each time another acorn hits the side of the building. The paper man (remember when boys on bikes delivered papers?) drives up with his rap music blaring. The anxiety slows if I try to live in the moment, so I practice doing so.
Everything is going to be OK. Even when we don't believe this to be true.