Worry

My son uses an expression, "vortex of suckage."  I appreciate how emphatically it sidesteps ambivalence.  Worry has to own major real estate in that vortex.  It is possibly the poorest use of human resources.  I know it is the worst use of mine.

Cat versions of Guatemalan worry dolls.

Worry is a state of mind that almost proves demonic possession.  What, on an ordinary day full of promise and possibility, can cause a semi-normal senior citizen to make the mental leap into an unknowable future and start gnawing on bad outcomes as though there was nourishment to be found there?  Monkey mind.  Reptilian brain.  Like Odysseus, it becomes necessary to lash one's self to the mast of this very moment so as not to stray into places where trouble awaits.  Worry's call is that convincing, insistent and, perhaps to some, seductive.

Over time I have become more skilled at eluding its grasp.  I am much less inclined to put energy into frightening myself than I once was; the only payoff is anxiety which becomes sleeplessness, palpitations, dread, discouragement, defeat.  The wearing of tin foil hats makes a lot of sense, if it stops even one negative thought from forming.

Worry has not swallowed me whole, yet, today and likely will not.   But, quoting Princess Leia, it's "...foul stench" is enough to set off the alarms.  It is a task to combine vigilance with the ideal lazy, punting-on-the Thames existence.  The trick is always to know just where you are - and where you are not.  If whatever you hear shrieking that its hair is on fire is not actually in the room, it is worry.  Let it go.  I will try to do the same.