Worrywart!

There are no worries like those that you have about your child.  Now, I’ve always had a predisposition for anxiety. I’m not just anxious about big things, but I’m also overly concerned about stupid little things. I am also restless and tense and wander around the house puttering when I can.

For example, tonight Anna has already fallen asleep and I am alone with her and my dog and cat and my thoughts for the evening. And now that I have the “me” time I occasionally, secretly crave….I really don’t know what to do with myself. So, instead of pacing around and cleaning, I decided to write – sorry to take my restlessness out on you in the cyber world!



Anyway, anxiety is nothing unusual and thankfully there’s a drug for that.  Which is awesome if you’ve been pretty much a basket case under the surface since age 6.  The different treatments I’ve had for anxiety over the years have really helped, and now, thanks (in large part) to the pharmaceutical industry, I’m a LOT less prone to worrying and a lot more mellow. It’s revolutionized my world.

Funny Faces, July 2011

But there’s no magic pill than can get rid of your worries about your child.

Thankfully, today my worry is only that Anna seems to have a bit of a cold – fever, coughs, etc.  But even knowing that this probably isn’t a huge deal, there’s no more miserable feeling than seeing your child glassy-eyed and drippy and pitiful. It tears at your heartstrings.  And I know this is just the tip of the iceberg.

This causes me to think about my own parents and how they must have worried about me once we got past colds and headaches, school nervousness, and those early childhood “little things.”  How must they have felt when I started driving?  When I dated people (the ones they knew about, anyway)?  When I started college, got my heart broken, had car accidents, came out, struggled to find a job, and the list goes on….?  I can’t imagine it – yet.

Thanks again, karma, for coming back to get me. I owe you one.

It’s funny how you never think about those things when you’re the carefree teenager, the stubborn rebel, the young adult who thinks bad things only happen to “other people.”  You claw your way free of the warm embrace of family and home, determined to carve out your own niche in the world, to do things your way and not theirs, to stand on your own two feet because “I don’t need you – I don’t need anybody.”

Then one day somebody comes along and places this tiny, perfect being in your arms and suddenly, light as she is, you hold the weight of the world there.

You know what it feels like to be them.

Holding a new Baby Anna - Oct. 2008

Funny how the tables turn, isn’t it?  Now I’m the one who’s going to be holding my little girl’s hand at the doctor, bandaging cuts, wondering how she’ll do in school, waiting up for her on dates (baseball bat at the ready – just kidding!), hoping she gets into college, drying her tears, rescuing her if she ever needs it.

So much for freedom from worry!

It’s funny how I’ve traded my routine worries and anxieties for much bigger ones, and it’s those that don’t have a magic, easy dose of solution.

It’s not like I didn’t know my parents worried – of course I knew. I just thought they were being silly sometimes, or overreacting, or unduly restricting my freedom and making me miserable because they could. 

But now a light bulb is coming on for me.  They weren’t overdoing it – they were doing what people naturally do who care for another human being, experiencing the age-old dance of automatic autopilot that all parents have always done.  You sometimes act and react without thinking.

The greatest love of your life understandably brings with it the highest stakes and the greatest sacrifice.

It’s the highest honor to wear that label: parent.  And it’s also the one that brings with it the most responsibility and pressure.  Because nothing is as important as that little one who will grow up before your eyes all too fast.  I’ve called it writing on a blank slate before, and I can’t think of a better analogy. He or she is the most important project of your life.

I try not to get too far ahead of myself – that’s probably been the toughest part of having anxiety issues over the years for me, the tendency to look into the future and worry like crazy about things that will, in all likelihood, never happen.  Right now Anna, though she’s rapidly becoming a “big girl,” is still very young and we have years to go before the time-honored hurdles of adolescence and young adulthood. 

But it’s the nature of raising a child that those thoughts drift in and out sometimes.  Of course they do.  We care more about our kids than we ever have about anything else.

Although I had enjoyed my ability to push worries aside, now I get it that these uniquely parent qualms come with the territory.  So call me a worrywart, that’s fine – because what used to feel like a burden is now an honor.

Pure joy, Aug. 2011