I am a worrywart

I worry that I didn’t turn off the iron. I worry that I didn’t lock the front door. I worry that the white patch on the side of my dog’s nose is skin cancer. I worry that the iron will start a fire that will burn down my house, unlocked for any passing looters to carry away all my possessions that are not yet consumed by fire, and my dog will be too weak from the cancer to scoot out the open door.

Generally, I give into this perpetual worry and wallow in it, ruining weekends and vacations and nights of sleep if I can’t find a way to dispel my anxiety. I will make phone calls, send emails, and run things through my head again and again—all to assuage my fears or, sometimes I think, to perpetuate them.

Once I’ve determined that I’ve worried for naught, I feel an immense sense of relief as if the governor has given me a last-minute reprieve on my death sentence, and I get to live. Of course, in retrospect, I almost always realize that my worrying is irrational and I make a solemn vow to never let my worry to reach this apoplectic level again. But soon enough my rational state of mind gives way to another niggling feeling in the pit of my stomach, which this time, I’m convinced really and truly could cause me to lose my job or my boyfriend or maybe even my hair.

I’ve worried about my worrying for years. I’ve done yoga and dabbled with meditation. I’ve been in therapy and I’ve even considered anti-anxiety drugs. But eventually I came to realize that worrying was as much a part of my genetic makeup as that Mr. Spock point on my left ear.

You see my mother raised me on a steady diet of anxiety. She used to worry that she hadn’t blown out a candle, locked a window or let out the cat. She’d also worry about the normal stuff like our crossing the street by ourselves or staying out too late, but she worried about these things way past when parents normally do.

When I was in college and wasn’t home when she thought I should be, my mother called my boyfriends’ houses, just to be sure they weren’t holding me against my will. And even as an adult, if I don’t answer my home phone, she calls my cell phone and if I don’t answer either, she starts a steady volley of phone calls between the two. If that doesn’t work, she calls my sister. Once when I sounded distracted on a call, my mom was convinced that someone had broken into my house and was holding me hostage.

Since I’ve started my own business, real worries, like paying my bills each month, have replaced the unfounded ones. There seems to be less space in my head for those annoying squatters to take up residence anymore. But despite my success at controlling these demons, I realize that I’m just not wired to skip merrily through life and will be making U-turns and peering over my shoulder forever. The trick, I think, is to continue moving forward in the process!