Real Worries

 

There’s nothing like worry. Useless, stressful, wearing and bad for the soul.

I worry about everything.

I wonder how long the little blue car will endure, will the a/c unit last another year, will the agency survive, what if I have a catastrophic injury or illness, do I have enough life insurance, will a tree fall on the roof during the next thunderstorm, how am I going to manage without unemployment benefits. I worry that Covid 19 will kill us all, that the president will win in November, that there won’t be a country left to call home. I think about cuts to social security and medicare and families going bankrupt from or without health care. I worry about the forests and the oceans and the air and the wildlife preserves. It’s foolish and wasteful and unhealthy but if it’s out there, I worry about it. Now and again, for brief periods, I find and push the pause button but in the end the off button just doesn’t work.

I’ve practiced one day at a time thinking and staying out of the dark places for a very long time now but there’s always been a ray of hope to hold onto. Now the reality is that if the president wins re-election, it’s a victory for ignorance, racism, misogyny, political corruption, hypocrisy and nepotism. After another four years of self destruction, I’m not persuaded that as a country we will ever be able to find our way back. Some damage can’t be undone.

In an effort to distract myself, I sign onto social media to see what’s happening outside my own self. I scroll past the political crap piles and delete the sad eyed, abused animals but I can’t quite bypass the update about a friend’s child who is in St. Jude’s in Memphis with leukemia and not doing well. I can’t imagine what they’re going through, can’t even begin to comprehend the fear and anxiety and exhaustion they must be feeling. Then I see a new GoFundMe account set up for a modeling agent I know in Dallas. In his fight against a particularly virulent, brutal and disfiguring cancer, they have tried everything without any success. He has a wife and four young children and isn’t expected to see another Christmas.

I send donations to both and remind myself what real worry is.