I've Been Away Needlessly Worrying

I've not posted in almost a week.  I’ve feeling rather glum and so not too inspired to write.  There is no one thing exactly.  It’s more like a series of things that have left me feeling anxious and uncertain.  A dispute with the man who installed my gutters (and learning my roof was “improperly installed” as a result), my camera breaking, a book which left me contemplative about the good and evil in humans and the great uncertainty of this life, the political campaigns and election and the animosity therein, pricing tickets to travel to my sister's in Seattle which is so blasted expensive it hurts me a little, wishing I could see more of the world—even just my beautiful Montana part of it—and feeling like there is never the time, preparing for the biggest show at which we’ve ever been a vendor, catching a cold, and so on.  

 This is part of the problem right here.  When I start being worried about one thing my mind comes up with a seemingly endless list of all of the rest of the things I could worry about—little and big.  It’s such a bad loop.  It’s a bad habit.  Its a mean game my mind plays on me.  I check it.  It seems back in.  I check it again.  And still the nagging dread in my stomach keeps returning.  No matter how many times I try to bring to mind "...grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...."  I can have a tendency to live in the past with my coulda-woulda-shouldas when I get into one of these loops replaying what I could have said or should have done.

And it’s affecting my body and making me all out of sorts no matter how I try to calm myself.  I’ve got little appetite and when I wake in the night my mind immediately starts racing with my concerns (mostly the gutter thing) that I just cannot seem to quiet in order to fall asleep again.  So I lie awake, trying to force myself to listen to Matt’s regular, slow breath and go back to sleep.  My stomach hurts, all tangled up in nervous knots, and I am so very tired.  I just want to crawl into bed and sleep all day long.  Thank heavens for Matt, oh poor Matt who must put up with me and my moods, who is always the sounding-board and comfort that I need to nudge me back up when I get low.

I keep reminding myself that life is good.  Life is good.  Life is good!  It is.  I know it is.  It really, really is.  These worries and fears are temporary, just like everything else.  In The Big Picture they are nothing to be so concerned about as to make myself feel sick, to lose sleep.  It is silly.  Money is not worth losing sleep over.  The fact that in the end I am not really in control (think:  earthquakes, floods, illness, political unrest, etc) no matter how I plan my future is not something to lose sleep over because it is really out of my hands.  

I’ve got a roof over my head and food in my belly.  Family and friends that love me.  A body, which though certainly imperfect, is  able enough to do what I want with it.  Eyes for watching sunsets and ears for hearing music.  A patch of land to turn up and plant seeds in.  A guitar to play and a voice to sing along with.  Too many good books to read.  This is the loop I need to get stuck in.  Why is it so much easier to get stuck in the bad one? 

But, today is a new day.