Barbara: On Tuesday, I sat
down to write my Wednesday blog-post, and as you may have guessed by my
“unexpected” Wednesday Five Crazy Things, I ended up getting sidelined by life.
There were monumental glitches in the work I was doing that needed incredible
focus and patience to overcome and deal with, there was the fact that I had my original
Wednesday blog-post half-written and then DISCARDED IT!! (accidentally) (let’s just
assume it was likely the most insightful, articulate, epiphany-inducing piece I
have ever written and now it is lost in
the cyber-garbage and we will never
know), and then there was the subtle but pervasive thrum of worry because my
daughter was due home from her stay in Paris and there were major travel snafus
along the way. She was scheduled to arrive home at 2pm, and we brought her into
the house from the airport at exactly 10:30pm!
The irony is that I had been
starting to write about a recent lesson (or re-lesson, as this is one of those I
need to keep learning and learning and learning) about dealing with anxiety.
The other day, a friend
entertained and delighted us with a great motto when it comes to dealing with
anxiety—or really problems of every kind. 1. You see the problem. 2. You
acknowledge the problem (yes, this is an important step). 3. And then you wave
it buh-bye as it recedes into the distance.
And not only is this sound
“anxiety advice”—I will draw your attention to this post where Deb utters the
magic words: “Don’t go there twice” (you live the imagined worst-case scenario
once when you imagine it, and then again IF it actually happens)—but it is also
sound “problem advice”. Why? Because truly every
horrible, terrible thing that happens to us does eventually recede into the
distance. We can only deal with issues when they happen, do the best we can,
and, yes, carry on. Either way, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we
hold on to our pain or not, the event does recede into the past. So the
nutshell of acknowledging it and waving it buh-bye is an effective one—for me, certainly.
But, ironically, as I was
trying to write this piece the first time (you know, the version that is
absolutely mind-blowing and breathtaking, but gone), I was nursing an
insistent, burrowing worry around my daughter being in hiccup-plagued transit
and not home, safe and sound with me (as she is now, quietly watching a classic
musical on TV in the other room). That anxiety made waste of my day, causing me
to not solve problems in a timely or reliable way, and probably caused the
tragic accident of hitting the delete button on what may have been my life’s
opus. Oh well. Lesson relearned.
Deb: Barbara, as you know I have lived these scenarios and I totally
subscribe to the old and well-worn phrase, “these should be our only problems”.
Don’t get me wrong, dear readers, we LOVE our blog and our bloggie community,
but I have to say that we know after these two and a half years, that when we
mix it up, we know that you guys instinctively know that we have a good reason.
Even if that reason is to have a conversation and cup of tea with our child.
