thoughts on stress

Most things I worry about never happen anyway.

This is my mantra, courtesy of Tom Petty. Sometimes it works-- sometimes it reminds me when I start to worry that most likely my fears are unfounded, most likely whatever it is that has my brain perched on the edge of a cliff over an unknown will not come to pass, and everything will be fine.

In reality, nothing bad has happened to me in several years. I would call the last "bad thing" losing my grandfather in his battle with cancer. My husband lost both his grandmothers last year, but those were his personal tragedies, not mine, and though I shared in his grief it obviously isn't the same. I've lost and left a couple jobs in that time span. I also lost out on purchasing my dream store at the last minute, and while that took me a few months to move past, now that I look back I know that it was for the best. Most things seem so small in comparison to the truly stress worthy.

So I'm trying very hard not to sweat the small stuff. My father does, boy does he ever. Last time we went to the beach together, the air conditioner in our condo broke, and while yes it was July in Florida and steamy hot like the inside of a baked potato, you would have thought someone just kicked his dog. I'm used to his outbursts, but it took my husband by surprise. My brothers are the same way, once chasing each other around the outside of the house in circles trying to punch each other on Easter Sunday. Neither can tell you now what started the brawl. You're all picturing little boys with angry, tear-stained faces pantingly trying to get the last lick, but no, they were 23 and 17 at the time.

My mother is a natural born hand-wringer-- she's never been able to put a worried thought out of her mind until she gets a resolution to a problem, and since my father sees everything as a problem, she's always had something about which to worry. She tried hard to pass this on to me. I tripped her up at the last minute, though, by marrying the most relaxed and worry free man on earth. He might as well be Jimmy Buffett, only without the parrots and faded cargo shorts. He keeps my worrying side in check, reminding me when he sees my mother start to appear inside me that everything's going to work out just fine, even singing that particular Petty song to me when I really need it. He keeps me together when life starts to fray at the edges.

Work can be particularly stressful. I think what makes it so much worse now, as work stresses in the past were something I was able to leave behind at 5 pm,is that I think of this job more as a career than just a job. I plan on working here for a long time, so when something here causes me stress, I'm more likely to worry about it since it might be around long-term. I actually care about this place and these people and our success here.

But the stress and worries that work causes me is nothing in relation to the stress real problems cause, and I must remember this. I got a reminder this morning in the form of an email from my husband's aunt. While I was panicking over a requirement my boss just asked me to fulfill, wanting to move up a deadline to a irrational and illogical date, I happened to check my personal email and read her message in order to get my mind off work for a second. It worked. My husband's cousin spouse, who has been battling brain tumors as long as even his cousin has known him, is finally being sent home to die.

Sent home to die. I remember that phrase, I remember the way that feels, helpless and angry and spiteful. How do you accept that, how do you come to terms with "nothing left to be done?" After years of remission to have it resurface, stronger this time, now after having a son as well, a son who will grow up without his father, without the larger than life man with the bosterous laugh, to never know him. The doctors told his wife to take him home, that in two weeks he won't recognize anyone anymore so gather the family quickly, and shortly after he will be gone.

I feel stupid for needing something like this to put my insignificant worries to rest this morning. I wish I could be the kind of person who always has perspective, who instantly calms a brewing storm the way my husband can.