My mother, blessedly, is not one to give advice often. Her favorite piece is, “Only worry about things you can do something about,” which is something neither of us really succeed at. Occasionally, she will also quote the pastor of the church we attended when I was in elementary school. His adage, "Act, don’t react,” is excellent advice and fodder for another blog post.
On this glorious pre-autumnal day I find myself fraught with worry, consumed by it, almost devoured by it.
In between doing laundry and working, of course.
But the worry seems to be winning.
Fast forward to this not so glorious pre-autumnal day about a week later. Today I’m still worried about a myriad of things, including whether I’ll ever get another (decent) blog post written again. I just finished my walk (cut short because I was worrying about A. getting rained on B. everything that has to be done today) and it occurred to me I used to be so busy before we moved to the prairie I didn’t have time to worry. Oh, there was plenty of time to be stressed, overworked, and anxious but not a lot of time to fret.
Then we made a drastic lifestyle change, leaving jobs at a large university in the Mid-Atlantic region for life at a much smaller university in the Middle West, much closer to family.
One thing I never worry about is that we made the wrong decision to move.
And that alone guarantees peace of mind even when I’m stewing and stressing about… stuff.