The Worry That Never Ends

There's something morbid that I've been thinking about lately and it really bothers me.

Let me give you some background first - I've always been pretty realistic negative. When I was younger, I found that being negative was a great way to keep myself from being overly disappointed about a test score or my performance in a swim meet. Before the test, event, date, or whatever, I'd simply imagine the very worst happening. In my daydream I'd get an F on my Calculus test, I'd come in dead last in the 100 yard breaststroke with half the school watching, or I'd throw up all over my date for the Homecoming dance. Then, if I got anything less than what I really expected of myself - an A, 1st place, and being a fabulous dating companion - I'd think well, hell, it could have been much worse. And I somehow thought that thinking the worst would actually make it easier if it ever really happened. Of course, it never did.

I still do this. The night before an important hearing, meeting, or trial, I'll picture myself falling flat on my face, forgetting how to speak (let alone doing it in a persuasive manner), or making an ass of myself in front of a judge, colleagues, a client, or all three at once! For the record, I've only forgotten how to speak in court once (one of my first times) for about 10 minutes 10 seconds. It felt like an eternity but it was by no means as bad as I had imagined it.

But I also imagine the worst in ways that I wish I didn't. I sometimes imagine horrible things happening to the people I love most. T dies in a fiery car wreck when I'm a bit worried that he's late getting home. My parents, flying across the country to see us, plummet to their deaths in a freak airline disaster caused by a domestic terrorist who has concocted some way to bring the plane down with 2 ounces of bottled water and a nail file. And the worst - I drive over the high rise bridge near my house, am hit by an oncoming car, pushed off the bridge, and we plummet down to the surface of the water. Then, if I happen to be conscious in the daydream, I try futilely to figure out how to get 2 children under 3 out of their car seats and swim us to the surface before we all drown. My own horrible little Sophie's Choice.

Now don't worry, there's really no reason to call the Crisis Suicide Hot Line or anything. I don't dwell overly on these horrid little tableaus. In fact, they flash through my mind in 30 seconds or so and I mentally stomp them into ashes. I'm not quite ready for the psych ward, or even a nice Xanax prescription. I just worry about the people I love. I can't really imagine anything happening to them, especially my children, or how I would react. It's astounding how much scarier the outside world becomes once you become a parent, isn't it? I think that my horrid daydreams are a reaction to that. A way to try to prepare myself for the worst and somehow make it easier if it happens. Of course, we all know that it never really will.

So now that I've dumped my neuroses onto the Internet, I need to sneak upstairs and kiss my little boys. I truly am blessed.


On a completely unrelated topic, I have this nifty little monitoring service called Google Analytics. I've actually posted about it here before. Not only does it tell me interesting things like key words picked up by search engines, it also tracks daily visitors by such features as specific geographical location and domain name. So if, say, someone from my past felt it necessary to obsessively check my blog several times a day, I would know about it. I'm just saying.