i should have a worry wart the size of texas or possibly the whole of canada stuck to my forehead.
i worry about friends, family, finances--almost in that order. but more scattered, i'm sure. kind of buckshot on the target.
randomly: i worry about dan. i worry about dan some more. i worry about filling my gas tank and not having my bottle of Heet to add, and how high gas prices will soar.
i worry about serena, and then i worry about WHY i'm worrying about serena, since she doesn't seem to worry about me.
i worry about eero, and my parents, and if the milk has gone bad in my refrigerator. i worry about alison, aka unrested, the girl whose blog i happened upon by pushing "next blog" but seems like serendipity that i did.
and then i worry about what, if anything, henry the cat might pee on next.
it's exhausting.
having identified that i have this problem, this anxiety overlapping anxiety, i need to find its edges and make it something that doesn't just creep over me and intensify slowly until the only thing filling my head is this worry.
the actual definition is: v., wor·ried (wûr'ed, wur'-), wor·ry·ing, wor·ries (wûr'ez, wur'-).
1. To feel uneasy or concerned about something; be troubled.
2. To pull or tear at something with or as if with the teeth.
word history: The ancestor of our word, Old English wyrgan, meant "to strangle." Its Middle English descendant, worien, kept this sense and developed the new sense "to grasp by the throat with the teeth and lacerate" or "to kill or injure by biting and shaking." This is the way wolves or dogs might attack sheep, for example. In the 16th century worry began to be used in the sense "to harass, as by rough treatment or attack," or "to assault verbally," and in the 17th century the word took on the sense "to bother, distress, or persecute." It was a small step from this sense to the main modern senses "to cause to feel anxious or distressed" and "to feel troubled or uneasy," first recorded in the 19th century.
course, the problem isn't that i shouldn't worry. it's the extent to which i take it. perhaps some people would classify their worry as kitten-sized, or lynx.
i'm a few classes above that. i can see my self in this arena--i'm the little pagan being torn to shreds by worry, wondertwin form of: giant slavering starving lionsand tigers and bears, oh my!
quite obviously, i need a lion tamer.
however, i can't depend on anyone to tame this fucker but me.
i wish someone else could sweep up the peices like i did when i was a janitor and cleaned up other people's crushed bags of potato chips.
***
worry eclipses hope. i don't hope for much of anything, except to wake up the next morning and not smell kitty piss. it's a big dream of mine. (;
often, universal signs surprise me--i think it's because i'm not hoping that i'm sent hope, in strange forms.
yesterday i was struck by a client's voicemail. there was the usual mumbo jumbo--hi, this is so and so, leave your message and phone number. and then just before the beep:
WHATEVER YOU ARE THINKING RIGHT NOW, YOU ARE PLANNING FOR LATER. IF YOU ARE WORRYING, YOU ARE PLANNING. IF YOU ARE JOYFUL, YOU ARE PLANNING. WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING?
i'm planning to worry. i wake up every morning, already worrying the lion by its tail. to me, it seems as if when i worry, i shave off some of the fear that is my own anxiety over situations, and then when the situation roars, i'm not so worried about it. i can be complacent.
what i know i'm doing, however, is worrying about things until they become insurmountable--i take the kitten and stretch it and pull it and tug it until it is a leopard. the sun doesn't shine, the sky doesn't rain--above me i've got the protective layer of rationalization, which just isn't healthy.
how do i stop? dan says i just have to leave it alone. but it's so very difficult to do so. if i focus--and i mean focus as in spend an hour working at it--i can alleviate some of the worry. but i'm just rationalizing. i'm telling myself i have nothing to worry about.
the kitten is still there, on the machine, being yanked into form. do i dismantle the machine, or find a way to remove the kitten?
5 comments:
I think it'd be really cool to start a worry club. You can be president and I'll be vice president
I used to worry a lot when I was a child. Then one day I simply realized that I had little or no control over most of the things I worried about. That is not to say that I don't worry but at least it doesn't consume me like it used to.
Now if I can just get my 13 yo daughter to figure the same thing out. She worries about everything.
I wouldn't listen to me. I rarely worry about anything, diving in head first and it gets me in a lot of trouble.
Well, my therapist has told me when I start doing this to start doing something else physically. Her theory is that if we change what we're doing, we'll also change what we're thinking. Quite honestly, I worry to much to try that. My worries are mostly about illnesses & death. Not mine, but those I love, even just like.
My own theory is that worrying is serving some sort of purpose for you. As long as you can worry about it, then all hope isn't lost because you're worrying about things getting worse not better. So that means things aren't that bad, but could be & you're holding that at bay.
Heck, ask George Bush. He claims God talks to him!
Jane- I used to ride my bike whenever I was really upset because I couldn't worry or be angry and ride my bike or I'd crash. I always came home feeling so much better. I guess I was doing what your therapist said without realizing it was a "therapy". :)
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