I am a great and wonderful worrier. The best there is, really. I've inherited it from my mother. For example, a couple of weeks ago I bought a Groupon to the Franklin Institute. You would think this would be a relatively innocent piece of information to share with a person. Not my mother. She knows Groupons expire. I have been asked every weekend since, sometimes several times, when we are going to use the Groupon. She's worried that it will expire and we won't have used it. It keeps her up at night. I luckily am not to this stage of worrying in my life. I suppose when all my children are gone and have families of their own and there isn't all that much left to worry about, I'll worry about if their Groupons will expire before they have a chance to use them.
My current worrying expertise, other than finances, is what I will say when someone will, eventually, affront me. Over the past six years or so I have had people, people who are close friends and family, say some pretty awful things to me. I won't go into details now. I am left speechless after the stinging comments. Often it takes me days to even process that what they said to me is as awful as it is. So, now if I find myself coming into contact with such people I try to mentally prepare for the insults and cruelty. They, of course, don't attack when I'm prepared, but prepared I am often at the expense of precious sleep. I'm working on this. (Also, please don't ask why these toxic people are in my life. They are because they have to be. That is all I will say for now. I have limited my contact as much as humanly possible without also hurting the people I love the most, my husband and children, and it is for them that I continue to endure these people in my life.)
Unfortunately, this summer has presented me with some bigger worries in my life, things actually worry-worthy, not that worrying makes them any less of a concern, but they are real just the same. They leave me feeling a bit out of control, and if you haven't figured out by now, I'm definitely a Type-A personality, a.k.a. control friek. As I said in a previous post, this whole blog is based on the fact that there are certain things in my life right now that are on hold, and yes, I am OK with that, but it doesn't make it any easier to accept and deal with it on those bad days. My career, if you can even call it that, is possibly non-existent. And there are some things going on with my kids, my oldest in particular, that keeps me up at night.
So, this is where Part Two of the challenge comes in. I'm not a particularly religious person, and I compare myself with some pretty heavy hitters. My college roommate volunteered a year of her life to a Catholic charity working in inner-city Chicago with under-privileged preschool children. My cousin converted to Mennonite, lives in Lancaster County, PA, and attends regular prayer meetings and bible studies. She even wears the bonnet. I am not so dedicated a soul, but I do attend church somewhat regularly and have a firm, solid relationship with God, though not as educated as some. Sometimes I forget this. I forget that I have these beliefs and have fostered a relationship with God. I forget to pray. And you know what? Prayer works! Big time.
Case in point, three years ago I was pregnant with Milo and we were about to have the twenty week ultrasound to find out if the baby was healthy and the sex. A close family member made an awful comment pretty much discounting this baby's worth and place in the family. (Again, I won't go into details.) This wasn't the first time this family member hurt me, but to say something so horrific about an unborn child crossed the line. I did confront her, but it made no difference; in fact, I saw that her utter lack of remorse showed the kind of person she really was. A couple months later she was diagnosed with cancer. Sadly, after the cancer diagnosis, she still found the time to commit an act of revenge against me that in turn was pretty horrific as it affected not me, but a friend, almost leaving her unemployed. (Sorry, no details here either.)
Here I was faced with quite a dilemma. I wouldn't wish cancer on my worst enemy, but now a person who quite frankly displayed sociopathic tendencies towards me was battling cancer. The family needed me to be supportive, and I felt nothing but indifference. Indifference, by the way, is a much worse emotion to have. Really it's a lack of emotion, and how do you work through emotions that aren't there? I wasn't happy that she was sick. I had stopped being angry with this person because I now knew what she was. If I had been angry, maybe I would have felt gladness at her misfortune. Anger is a powerful emotion, and as wrong as it would have been for me to feel those things, I at least would have been able to acknowledge them and work through it. My emotional attachment to the woman was completely severed, but here was this long process of surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation sitting before me that the entire family would need to endure. Being a fairly empathetic person, I had never experienced emotional detachment to a person, especially one who was so close to me.
I turned it all over to God. I literally said, "God, I'm giving this to You. This is way too big for me to handle." I turned her over to God. I turned the family over to God. I asked God to deal with her cruelties to me. I asked God to bless her through the treatment because no one should suffer through that. And finally I asked God to help me find my place in offering support where I could. He listened. It was just that simple. People often ask God for a sign. He sends me "signs" all the time. It's the same sign over and over again. I turn something over to Him, and I'm assuming when he gets the message and puts it on his "To Do" list, I suddenly am able to fall asleep.
Despite God's constant answering of prayers, I still forget to turn it over. So for the month of September, as I complete one yoga circuit each day to strengthen and heal my body, I will offer a prayer to God to strengthen and heal my soul. I'm pretty sure as far as my wish to move or to have more money, God has said, "Hold on. Not right now." So, this blog, these challenges, is me finally saying, "OK, I'm listening."
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