Worry

 I was thinking about worry recently. I like this time of my life when I can let my mind drift where it may and ponder ideas and thoughts that I never had time for in the Before Times of job and bills and social activity and routines.

I'm not a worrier by nature anymore. I realized a long time ago now that it was a huge waste of time and that things had a way of righting themselves.

I had a life lesson in the form of an experience I had when I was in my late forties.

I lost a good position due to an enormous clash I had with my boss, the vice-president of an American Corporation. It was an ugly exit. He was an ex-marine and ran the Canadian division with military precision, making outrageous demands on the staff which resulted in him being a hero for maximizing  profits based on unpaid labour. I was the Canadian controller of the firm. We did not see eye to eye on just about anything.

The month before I had sold my townhouse in the suburbs and moved into a detached home in Toronto - small, but my dream home, right on the subway line with a good sized mortgage.

My exit was handled by our lawyers - that will tell you how acrimonious it was.

The relief I felt on leaving was enormous and my exit package was enough to carry me and expenses for about 4 months. But after some 5 or so years with this company, I knew good references would not be forthcoming.

So I sat in my new-to-me house, my dream home, and stewed and fretted, envisioning the foreclosure, wondering where I was going to live, maybe a rat-infested dingy basement apartment, as I slaved away somewhere equally dismal on minimum wage.

Six weeks into this enforced idleness, with very little responses to my resume sent hither and yon, worry and fear consuming me, I had a call out of the blue from the president of a Toronto company, right around the corner, saying he was shutting down his manufacturing facility within the year and he needed a controller to manage it for him, staff, finances, diplomacy.

I met him and he hired me immediately. So for a year I had this lovely position, my confidence was restored, there were two incomes coming in for a while and in meditation one morning, I resolved never to worry again. 

Everything works out as it should. And the waste of that six weeks taught me a huge lesson in the uselessness of the word.

Right now, this minute, I could give you a list of things I could worry about health wise. Tests coming up, loss of appetite, skin troubles, and on and on I could go. But what's the point? It's not going to "fix" me at all and just make me sicker.

Often, we just need a kick in the old keister to wake us up and smell the coffee and turn around our own dyed in the wool behaviours.

If you worry, what do you worry about?

If not, have you ever and how did you change?

Malaise

I've come to dread those free floating anxiety episodes. I'm in one right now and I don't think I've ever written(apart from private journaling)openly during one.

I've no idea how long it will last.

It was a brilliant day. My fourth writing workshop this afternoon went really well, a big class, excellent assignments turned in, word is out there so visitors pop in for some sessions and also comment privately on the quality of the participants' writing. And I love conducting it.

Daughter (who attends) gave me lots of baking and cooking out of her trunk to take home with me and we then laugh as we find we've each been invited to the same house for dinner. Which was lovely. Another friend there gives me her special frozen soup to take home. I won't have to cook for days it looks like.

Chimney Man PMs me to tell me my parts are finally in, it took well over two months for 7" stove pipes to be found anywhere, there were certainly none on the island. The reason I know this is that others have been whining also. Our power bills were through the roof (no pun intended) waiting for them. Wood stoves save a whole wad of cash.

So all is going well, right?

So I bury myself in the Kimmy Schmidt series and I still feel that pit of the stomach thing which won't go away.

And I slap myself upside of the head, metaphorically, and it won't go away.

And I look at my dog and I worry. I look at all the legal papers that I had to sign yesterday at my lawyers. And I worry.

I listen to the rain outside. And I worry.

See?

There's nothing at all to worry about but I'm caught by the throat and I hope it won't be one of those endless nights.

I just hate those.

September Month

First blasty winds of winter scoop down today, shovelling leaves from trees, flattening the blades of grass to a green ocean, scattering the cornflowers.

Shoulds crowd my head. I should make rosehip jam. I should paint the spare bedroom.

Oh yeah, and deadline for first readership lineup of book looms ever closer. I should be editing, should be fixing that last chapter.

But I worry. Next door they are burn-clearing a hill. Smoke hangs like a pall over everything and then gets scooped up by the wind and filters through windows and doors and lurks, gasping, over the bay until the wind snarls it up again and throws it against distant houses.

What if?

I run to the post office to send back some library books. So I don't have to look at the flames licking the vast hill about 500 metres from my house. But I smell it even 5 km away.

Yeah, they ran hoses across my property as a precaution. I gave them permission for this. But the fire starters/carers are about 12 years old. How would they know anything about flame-killing if the trees catch? Or maybe it will leap across the grass over the fence and on to my house?

Anxieties.

Now unfounded.

Day is done.

The winds are intense and noisy but warm.

I will take the dog for a walk along the shore. As is our wont at this time of day. I love watching the waves pound up the cliff on the other side of the bay and then fall back exhausted.

Much like me.

Worrying about nothing knocks me right out.

No Time for Nerves

You know the way of it with something important coming up. The nerves take over a bit. Well maybe not for you. But certainly for me. Especially for public speaking. But only if given lead-time. Catch me by the seat of my pants and interview me on TV, so to speak, and off the cuff, I'm grand, just grand.

But I've been so busy over the last few weeks, there hasn't been a minute to fret and worry and construct and tear down the debut of the Seanchaí this weekend. Not to mention the thousands of "what ifs". I scheduled an hour for all that yesterday. I was in the city getting the car serviced and alloted the time between 6 and 7 pm for all that mulling while I rounded a "pond" (i.e. lake in any other corner of the world) on my daily constitutional. But it started to get mauzy, in that way of St. John's and there was a lot of business with the hood and and the zipper and keeping the socks dry and then I had to talk to the widower swan that everyone's paying attention to. He's an angry soul by the name of Oscar and attacks all who try to feed him and then there's his whining babies, the wee cygnets, swimming about. He is completely stressed out, what with the dayjob, the kids and the grief. So by the time I got back to the car, very damp, I realized I hadn't done any stressing myself. Ripped off by selfish Oscar.

And then the work, and a few calls and emails and today is just about shot as I have to be out of here by 5.45 to do some pro-bono work up the road. I say up the road, which is a laugh here. 20km is up the road. So I'm going to allocate 15 minutes in the car to stress and to worry and to fuss about Saturday night.

I'll let you know how that works out. I'm way overdue a good fretting session.

What, Me Worry?

Worry was intertwined with my last post about growing old and the fear of it.

I would have said I didn't worry about stuff. But I do. I took a step backward and observed myself on Saturday:

Here goes:

Worries crawl in. I watched them carefully today and lo and behold they staggered down the hall, whispering to each other, and on into my office and proceeded to infest my brain.

I'll tell you what I worried about, even briefly, today (Saturday). Welcome to the inner workings of my brain:

First snowfall of the season, about 5cm.

Yer man's not coming by with the snowplow, look he just passed my driveway again and he never answers his phone and I need an ingredient for a recipe so I can't drive to the shop so my brunch will be destroyed tomorrow without this ingredient, how can I face my guests.

Worry lasted an hour. Yer man showed up and plowed. Face red.

Where, goddam it, is Leo, he's supposed to clear the pathways and next thing we won't be able to access the barn for the wood for the fire and the house will freeze with the cold and I'll have to cancel the brunch and maybe I should just sell up and leave and find a tiny apartment in St. John's and get a lot of cans and pasta in and hunker down for the winter as they don't plow their sidewalks, and oh gawd, they don't take dogs, how can I leave my dog?

Worry skulked in and out for another hour. Leo, meanwhile, behind my back, was sorting wood (old~new) in the barn and locating the snow shovel and then shovelled all pedestrian access to the doors on the property.

I should seal off the front door, the drafts can be bad, but it will take me hours, do I have the time, I've never done this before, make the time. OK.

Job took 5 minutes. Face still red.

I shouldn't have to fix the bloody chair (see above). Glueing chair legs is so complicated, plus it's an antique, I don't want to damage it. What happened to all those years you refinished antiques, huh? But I have to - I need the chair for the annual Nollaig Na mBan tomorrow. I've no choice. More hours out of my tight little life.

Job took 10 minutes. Looks great. See above. Face still red.

And I'll post about my Nollaig na mBan soonest. It was rather splendid even though I say so myself.

Worry

Picture is of a bowl made out of local wood by my friend, "G.C."

It hit me again last night as I was driving home from meeting friends. As it has hit me many, many times over the years. The reality of worry.

A worry had been perking all the way through our many cups of coffee, stealing my presence throughout much of the night.

Why, sez I to myself do I let this happen? Let a stupid thing like a blocked up toilet in my bathroom at home interfere with a nice evening out?

And then, next thought, when has a worry actually actualized itself, inserted itself into reality?
When?
And I laughed out loud as I drove.
And came home. And got the plunger out again and rammed that sucker into the toilet and next thing, it flushes. Duh.
What makes me this way?
Well, the last time the toilet got blocked my genius of a handyman was out at the fish for a week and unavailable and I couldn’t get anyone to fix the toilet (nobody from the nearby town would drive out) until I dragged myself literally into the publicity of the local shop and bawled my question out loud after four days of using a bucket.

“Anyone here can fix a toilet? It’s really, really badly blocked!!” When I’m whipped and beaten and down for the count I lose all pride. I become shameless. Not a bad thing.

Well, the town drunk who is a you-have-to-be-desperate-to-hire-me kind of fellow volunteered. And he sorted me out. Early in the day before the fairies took him. He had to take the whole thing off the floor. What some people do for a living - or a bottle - has me in awe. I mean I used to gag changing my babies’ nappies. I tipped him well for his efforts. And knew who to call the next time. At his mother's. He's 55. Doesn't believe in wasting money on a phone when he can use his mother's. He doesn't live there. She has ways of getting hold of him. She even lets him borrow her truck if he has housecalls like mine. But I was sorted. No worries.

No matter what, I get taken care of. Time and time again. Septics, wells, wiring shite, no firewood and no chainsaw, no backdoor. It all gets taken care of.

So why, why, why do I worry about insane stuff?? Stuff that has no intention of ever happening?

Like my gentleman caller. I worried for a while he would make some kind of move on me. I haven’t the slightest shred of attraction to him (maybe the way R felt about me, there’s a thought!). So sometimes I avoided him. All for the worry of losing his friendship when I was forced to reject him. Jaybuzz, the insides of my brain frighten even me.

Well, in the last few weeks, I’ve helped him a few times with his computer issues and he gave me one of his beautiful hand crafted bowls (picture above, taken a few minutes ago), a loaf of his home baked bread and told me he is very much open to having a friend like me and he’d like to cook me dinner and talk some more and play a spot of cribbage, maybe. I do not feel threatened in any way. We have the most interesting conversations (ship wrecks, WW1, artistry, words, poetry, paintings, aging) and never once has he even touched me.
Worry.
Never happens.