As I get older and have more responsibilities I find myself being more worried.
I hope I have not developed some sort of odd psychological issue which causes me to doubt and worry, but I do worry.
I worry about bills. Can I pay them? What if one of us lost or quit our job? Why did I switch my job? My other work made me feel like I was accomplishing something, Project Management makes me feel like I'm fighting with myself.
Are the kids dead? At night I worry about the kids. Sean is still in SIDS territory and he sleeps on blankets with mom. When Mayumi is out with a kid or two I worry that they will be in an accident. I worry when she Mayumi comes home hours late after hanging out with her friends and not calling.
I worry about my past, and my future. Things I have said or done that may come back and haunt me. Things I have to do that may cause me trouble.
Hopefully by getting this out of my head they will ease.
I don't want to worry this much. Worry can be constructive; it makes you look at things from angles. It helps prepare for surprises; it keeps you from falling asleep and keeps you asleep. It makes you sleep like the dead, unless your child coughs, or rolls over, or murmurs in their sleep, and then you bolt upright, mind reeling. Fight or flight fight or flight. Heart pounding, adrenaline gushing, is he sick, do I need to run him to the bathroom or wash sheets?
Then looking down at a sleeping child curled up and comfortable. There is nothing like a child sleeping comfortably to put you at ease. Not that you can sleep with that much adrenaline in your system, but at least you are at ease, teeth chattering, heart rate up. Sometimes you wish some unarmed creep would break into your home so you can release one of these adrenaline spurts. Then I look around my room and realize I don't even have a bat.
I think I understand now why my mother holds such tension in her shoulders and why my dad has almost no need for a massage. She and I worry, we think about things that make us tense and put on our game face for the world. My dad, he gets angry. He tells you what it is you have done wrong and lets you know how to fix it. Perhaps if I could master his ability I would not worry. Could it be that worry stems from internalization of issues? Because I don't tell folks the things that bother me most I have created a mechanism to steep my thoughts into worry? I don't remember worrying this much before I became a Project Manager.
Regardless I worry, and I need to worry less.