Moose in the Kitchen

“So…. You should really calm down. Unless you WANT to implode after methodically blackening every one of your internal organs with your hysteria.”

My doctor didn’t really say that. But I’m sure she was THINKING it. I went for a fairly routine check-up yesterday and came out with more in the way of prescriptions and follow-up appointments than I was expecting. Which naturally leads me to the conclusion that I AM DYING. OF CANCER. OR POSSIBLY SCARLET FEVER. (Ailments sound much more impressive when they’re obsolete, don’t they? Contracting bubonic plague would make for a stellar blog post. Perhaps I should hang out with more street rats.)

I am a worrier. There should be a twelve-step program for this. But I’m not the one to devise it, because the only step I can think of is: STOP. One word does not a self-help revolution make. From my furrowed brow and clenched jaw, you’d think I was battling polio while trying to give a homeless street urchin a fresh shot at life. Rather than trying to figure out if I should watch my three episodes of West Wing before or after cracking open my new novel.

Looking at my problems in global and historical terms, I have precisely nothing to worry about. I have my health, a warm bed, regular meals, and friends and family who enjoy the same. From the middle-class American view, I should really be more on top of earning a decent wage and legally binding myself to someone who will give me a fat diamond ring. But still – not exactly the stuff of Anton Chekhov and vodka swilling misery. I’m not living in a cardboard box and, barring sudden apocalypse or crushing financial depression, there’s little danger of that happening. So why do I insist on living like doom is imminent? Perhaps it’s a chemical deficiency in my frontal lobe. I bet I need more MSG in my diet.

Even if I was saving the world on street urchin at a time (I’m not), worrying wouldn’t do a damn thing to help me. Yet I persist in letting the squirrels in my brain run the show while racing on their respective treadmills and shouting into their cell phones. (Note to the person who gave the squirrels in my head cell phones: WHY?) As an example, I have compiled a list of current worries for your perusal. Feel free to print this out and place it in your People I Never Want to Become folder.

1. Has working on the couch with my computer on my lap cooked my ovaries?

2. Will I ever write an essay that doesn’t read like Dr. Seuss meets Mr Bean?

3. Is that rash on my arm poison oak or TROPICAL FLESH-EATING BACTERIA?

4. If I dropped dead on the carpet, would the dog mourn me or would she try to eat my face?

5. Is the electrical wiring smoldering slowly in the walls, just waiting until I’m asleep to burst into full flame?

The list would be longer, but I’d like to preserve my aura of joie de vivre. My facade of rationality. My tenuous grip on sanity.

Life is so much nicer without an excess of DEAR GOD I AM GOING TO DIE. YOU KNOW, IN 50 YEARS. PERHAPS I SHOULD PLAN FOR THAT. I could boil down the productive benefits of my worrying to about five minutes a month. I’d get the same amount done, have more time to bake things, and be a hell of a lot more fun at parties. It’s really just a matter of unclenching your jaw, lowering your shoulders slowly away from your ears, and realizing that right now? Is really kind of nice. Maybe I should enjoy it.

Related posts:

1. It Was a Beautiful Moment
2. Meditations for Women Who SNAP
3. Squirrels, I Rebuke Thee
4. Not Worried, I Said!
5. If I Could Get Her On Water-Skis, My Life Would Be Complete