WORRYWORT

My Mom taught me how to not be a “worrywart”.  When I was small and my Dad was late getting home or one of my siblings did not arrive when expected my Mom would put a limit on her worry.  She would look at the clock and say “Ok, we won’t worry until (fill in the time) o’clock.”  And then she would go about her day and as far as I could see she would not worry.  It was a rare time when it hit the allotted time and the missing person hadn’t arrived home but when it did happen she would go into full MOM WORRY MODE and head out in search of the missing family member.    

If we came to her with an ache or a pain she would take a look at it and her stock reply was “Well, if it isn’t better by Christmas we’ll get it checked out.”  It didn’t matter what time of the year it was.  It could be February!  I can only remember one time that it wasn’t better by Christmas. Luckily my brother had gotten injured in October so it was only a couple of months of living with a broken finger before he had it treated.  

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I can’t decide if I worry more or less as I get older.  In general I think I worry less WHICH COMES FROM HAVING LIFE EXPERIENCES.  Because through my life experiences I have realized that we really have no control.  What’s going to happen is going to happen no matter how careful I am.  I can eat well and exercise a lot and still could end up with a heart attack or cancer that kills me.  I can drive defensively and follow all of the rules of the road and still be maimed or killed in an auto accident.  There is only so much I can do to avoid bad things.  So I just do the best I can and see where life takes me.  

On the other hand I think I worry more WHICH COMES FROM HAVING LIFE EXPERIENCES.  At one time the boys were in a Christian social group that met once a week in different homes all over the county.  One evening a year parents were invited to join one of the smaller groups.  The teens could ask the parents anything they wanted and we had to answer honestly.  The parents could ask the teens anything they wanted and they had to answer honestly. It was an interesting concept and one of the more enlightening evenings I have spent while raising teenagers.    One of the kids asked “Why do you have to always worry so much?  Why can’t you just let us learn our own lessons the hard way?”  We all quietly looked at this group of teens knowing the answer but not quite sure how to put it into words when one of the Moms spoke up.  

”Because we know . . . through life experience we know what can happen.  I have a friend whose brother fell off the roof of a frat house during a party and is paralyzed for the rest of his life.  I was in the car when it crashed and my best friend was killed.  I’ve been to the funeral of the drug addicted son of a good friend from school.  I know a boy whose hand was cut off when he put it too close to a wood chipper and another who cut his finger off using a buzz saw. I know of too many women to count who have been sexually assaulted when they were drunk, a cousin who fell off a corn silo the night of her graduation and died the next day.  Shit happens and you think it only happens to other people but it doesn’t and we know that through life experience.  We’ve seen it up close.  We’ve seen how fragile life is and how quickly it can be ruined.   You are still at the age where you don’t think these things will happen to you but we know differently — they’ve happened to us, they’ve happened to people close to us, no one is safe.  And the reason we don’t want you to learn all of your life lessons the hard way is because in the process you might lose your innocence, a limb, your mental health or your life.  That’s why.”  

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One day when my youngest son Drew was just four years old he came to me and said 

“Mom, I can make my own breakfast, I can go in the big toilet and I don’t need my puddly (pacifier) during the day.  I only have two more hard things to do … go to bed without my puddly and go on scary rides.”  He said it as if after that, life would be so easy!  I thought to myself if only those really could be the hardest things you had left to do!   I watched the boys make mistakes and learn things the hard way.   Being scared of new experiences, a favorite pet dying, breaking a leg, swallowing a quarter, a brother driving them crazy,  being disappointed by a friend, failing at something they worked so hard for, young women breaking up with them, deaths in the family.   And as they got older, the hard things got bigger. And I just don’t have the bandwidth to worry about it all.

Am I a worrywart?  Nah.  It doesn’t help.  It only makes you worry twice.  Once before it happens and once when it actually happens.  I prefer to only worry once when it actually happens, if in fact it does — whatever IT is  .  .  .