Not to worry

For much of the day on Saturday, I looked forward to a late afternoon run. After a hot summer during which it was essential most days to run before about 9 a.m. because of the heat, the cool crisp air was enticing, and so was the thought that the temperature didn’t need to dictate what time I headed out. So I went to Farmers Market, did some cooking, tidied up the house, and then I headed out at about 4:00.

And just as I’d expected, it was a beautiful day for running – the sun was strong by that time of day, but not oppressive, and the sky was bright blue – except that almost as soon as I started, I began to worry that I’d get hungry in the course of the five miles that lay ahead of me. And while it might sound funny to say I was worried about hunger – it’s not exactly like I didn’t know where my next meal was coming from, and the truth is that I have enough of a fat layer built up that I could probably hibernate if I chose to – becoming hungry while out on a run is an unpleasant experience. It makes me feel weak and shaky and clammy, which is not a good way to feel miles from home.

So I continued with the run and continued feeling like I’d sabotaged myself by not having a snack before heading out, until gradually something became clear to me: I actually wasn’t hungry. I was just worried about becoming hungry. And the idea that this might turn into an unpleasant run was ruining what had in fact the potential to be a great run.

So I made myself stop worrying about how things might turn out and instead just enjoyed what was in fact happening.

The more I thought about it afterwards, the more I realized how easily and frequently I allow anxiety about what could transpire subsume pleasure at what is actually transpiring. When we went to Colorado last month, I worried in advance that for various reasons the vacation wouldn’t turn out well. It turned out to be a magnificent vacation, but once I got home I felt like I’d cheated myself out of the fun of the anticipation because I’d been so apprehensive.

Last week an even starker example took shape. I needed to write an email to a colleague asking for a problematic favor that I suspected he would reject. I spent weeks agonizing over the necessity of writing the email. I put it off as long as possible. And then I gradually came to realize that no possible outcome of asking the favor could measure up to my dread of doing so. No matter what he said – even if he said there was no chance he would help me – hearing that wouldn’t be as oppressive as the fear that had built up in me over making the request. And so finally I wrote the email – not so much because I’d conquered my fears as because time had run out – and indeed, hearing his answer wasn’t so bad at all, even though it wasn’t an unqualified “yes.” As I’d come to suspect, no answer could have merited the apprehension I’d allowed to develop.

In a way, I think of this syndrome as “Life as a dentist appointment.” I’ve long dreaded going to the dentist because I have sensitive gums that make routine cleanings extremely uncomfortable for me. I worry for weeks ahead of each appointment, and I usually go into a cold sweat once I get to the dentist’s office. And even though about three years ago my dentist discovered an anesthetic gel that all but obliterates my gum sensitivity problem during cleanings, I still have the same panicky symptoms approaching the appointment, whereas if I looked objectively at the fact that thanks to the new gel, the gum problem isn’t really an issue anymore, I could bypass the awful feelings – the pounding heart, the sweating – altogether.

As it happens, I have a dentist appointment later this week, and I’m commanding myself not to go into a tailspin of anxiety over it. I won’t let apprehension ruin even a few minutes of another run, either, and I’ll try not to let anxiety about outcomes get in the way of my work anymore. It’s easier said than done, but it’s a lesson that’s slowly taking hold. If you have the opportunity to go running on a beautiful day, I now try to remember, just take in the beautiful day; don’t worry about how you might feel a mile or two in. Because the reality is you might not feel that way at all. On Saturday, the gorgeous weather was a certainty; the clammy, ill feeling that comes with hunger pangs while running was only a possibility. I’m trying hard to learn to let the sure thing, and not the anxiety-producing possibility, be my guide.

Stress....and resolution

It’s fair to say I woke up yesterday morning about as stressed as I can remember being in a long time. And yet I knew I had nothing serious to worry about. Nothing life-or-death, or geopolitical.

Still, the stress dogged me throughout the day. Even my two-mile run was arduous because I couldn’t relax into it; I could only worry about what I needed to do when I got back.

The problem was really just that this week represents the conflation of so many end-of-school-year responsibilities for my various roles as a school volunteer, along with my usual robust work load as a freelance writer. And everything always seems more rushed after a three-day weekend. Yesterday was the annual Teachers’ Appreciation Luncheon at our school, for which I was co-chair this year; tomorrow is Walk to School Day, for which I am also co-chair. Unrelated to either of those, Holly’s teacher had sent home a batch of handwritten stories from the second graders that I had earlier agreed to type up, and I had a slew of work deadlines beginning yesterday and extending through the week.

So I worried and stressed and felt ridiculously anxious about it all.

For one thing, I’d hustled out of town for the holiday weekend leaving a trail of loose ends, or so it seemed yesterday morning. Several of the parents who were contributing food or drinks to the Teachers’ Appreciation Luncheon had asked to drop items off at my house Tuesday morning, and I couldn’t remember if I’d responded to all of them. I hadn’t even looked at the list my co-chair had sent me last week of items I should bring with me when I headed up to the school to start setting up. I had a monthly newspaper column due for one publication and my weekly community briefs due to another publication; I was a day late submitting some edits to a client; I hadn’t even started a writing project that’s due today. I still didn’t have nearly enough adult volunteers for Walk to School Day: I’d already promised we could cover four major walking routes and five crosswalks, and I had about half the manpower I needed for that, with less than 48 hours left to recruit.

Equally problematic, yesterday’s afterschool plans for my 7-year-old – at the same time I was supposed to be hosting the luncheon – had fallen through, so she was going to have to come with me, an idea to which she’d already stated her adamant opposition. I was pretty sure I’d have a full-scale mutiny from her when I told her again she had to do it.

So I worried.

But I couldn’t sit still and worry; things needed to be done. And as I launched head first into the many tasks of the day, it all began working itself out. Things were falling into place. Inexplicably, when I stopped fretting about it and just moved along, it turned out I had less to worry about than I thought.

People began arriving at my house to drop off luncheon items, just as we’d planned via email on Friday; I thought I’d left questions about it unanswered, but everyone seemed to be finding their way to my door. With ninety minutes at my desk before I needed to start setting up for the luncheon at school, I managed to submit both the column and the community briefs. I finally looked at the list of kitchen items I’d been asked to bring with me, and it was just what I thought – index cards, plastic wrap, cake servers -- nothing extra, nothing hard to find. My husband’s afternoon meeting was canceled and he decided to come home for the day at noon, so Holly wouldn’t have to come with me after all; she could be at home with him. My friend Leigh called to ask me a question about the luncheon, and when I let slip that the luncheon was working out okay but it was Walk to School Day for which I was desperate for help, she said she could easily help out that morning.

The luncheon was a success: a stunning array of delicious foods. The teachers were delighted by our efforts, representing the culinary talents and generosity of dozens of parents; and the dessert my mother made was the most popular dish there, which made me proud. My mom and I have a long history with the Teacher Appreciation Luncheon; when I was in grade school myself, I used to help her cook for this same event, so she said it was only fair that she help me this time around.

It’s true that I had to catch up on a lot of work once I got back from the school, having spent three hours cleaning up from the lunch. And I was back at my desk again after the kids went to bed, struggling a little more to meet one last deadline. I’ll have a ton of work to do today. But that’s okay, because today there’s nothing else on my calendar for the day except work.

I’ll catch up. I’ll stop worrying. And maybe next time the duties pile up like this I’ll worry a little less, remembering how as soon as I stopped tormenting myself with anxieties, the tasks seemed almost magically to take care of themselves.

Letting the kids wander a little - while I sit and worry

Yesterday was a beautiful warm sunny May day. My 7-year-old invited her friend Samantha over to play. They asked me if they could go out to the barn. This is something fairly new for Holly. We live on the edge of my parents’ farm, and although she likes climbing rocks and playing in the pastures, Holly has generally showed little interest in the barnyard. But this was the second time this spring she and a friend had asked to play there.

I said yes with the usual caveats. “You have to be either in the barn or somewhere between there and the house; no wandering farther away. And you have to play together. No dividing up, even for something like hide-and-seek.” The girls agreed readily to these terms and headed out. I sat outside trying to read the newspaper, but because they were out of my eyesight, I worried.

I knew how silly that was. I knew this was exactly the kind of thing many parents love to see their kids do: play outside, take a friend by the hand and go do something a little bit adventuresome. My next door neighbor, Gail, introduced me to the book “Last Child in the Woods,” which essentially posits that it’s a big problem that we give our kids so little free rein anymore, both in terms of time – they are always scheduled for some activity or another – and in terms of physical independence. And recently I’ve discovered Lenore Skenazy’a popular Free Range Kids blog, devoted to this same idea. In fact, Skenazy is currently planning a fairly controversial event for next weekend called “Take Your Kids to the Park – And Leave Them There!”, intended to raise parents’ consciousness about being a little more lenient with our kids and allowing them to benefit from a little more physical freedom.

So as I sat there trying to read the paper, I reminded myself that it was a wonderful thing that Holly and Samantha were off exploring the barnyard. I knew they both had good judgment, just as my son Tim does. Neither of my kids is a daredevil: when I tell them to be cautious, or even if I don’t tell them to, I know they will. Both are diligent about following rules, and I’ve always trusted that if a friend does something my kids know to be wrong while playing at our house, my kids will tell me.

Still, I was uneasy with Samantha and Holly over in the barnyard, because I couldn’t see or hear them. The fears I have, based on the specifics of where we live and what they were doing, aren’t the typical worst-case scenarios. It’s extremely unlikely that there are child abductors, or anyone else for that matter, lurking in our pastures. The girls weren’t visible from the main road. And all the animals who have access to the barnyard are friendly, gentle and shy, so that wasn’t a concern either. Instead, I worry that one of them will wander into the woods, maybe even into a stream, which is why I insist they stay within eyesight of each other when they play and why I specifically disallow hide and seek. I also worry about stings. Twice, I’ve been in a situation with kids where we accidentally blundered into a hornets’ next, and it’s an awful situation to be in. While I trusted that if one of the girls had a minor accident like a fall, the other one would come get me, I couldn’t imagine how they’d manage if they stumbled onto a nest of hornets.

So I waited for a little bit, and then I wandered over just to check. A short distance from the barn, I could see them exploring the area together. They were fine. They were doing exactly what every mother should be lucky enough to see her seven-year-old doing on a beautiful spring day: enjoying the outdoors, discovering new elements of nature, exerting her independence to find ways to have fun. In this way, Skenazy’s idea about having kids spend some time at the park with other kids and without adult supervision makes a lot of sense. But still, I worry about emergencies: not abductions so much as bee stings.

After checking on the girls, though, I made myself stop worrying and just be happy that they were enjoying themselves. It can be hard to reach a state of mindfulness as a parent. You watch your child run off toward the woods and want to relish the Kodak moment but instead you’re worrying about hornets’ nests. Finding a balance is always the challenge: assure yourself they’re safe, and let them have fun. I know the girls had fun yesterday, and I believe they were safe. And I’m just really grateful that they got to play outside on such a magnificent spring day.

A compliment, a question, and a few minutes of worrying

My seven-year-old daughter and I were on the Minuteman Bikeway, a paved-over rail trail just four miles from our house. Named one of the country’s best rail trails, it attracts dozens of walkers, runners, bicyclists and in-line skaters on sunny weekend days like the one on which we were using it.

I’d wanted to fit in an afternoon run, and Holly wanted to go for a bike ride, so I suggested we try to do the two activities in tandem. Holly is still fairly new to a two-wheeler, so we hadn’t tried this combination before, but I’d seen other parents doing it lots of times, and it appeared to me that as long as the bicyclist has fairly short legs and a small bike and therefore couldn’t ride very fast, it could work out reasonably well.

We made our way two miles down the path, with Holly just a short distance ahead of me. I could see her the whole time, and at the few road crossings on that two-mile stretch, she stopped to wait for me so we could cross together.

After we reversed direction at the two-mile marker she must have accelerated, though, because I started finding it harder and harder to glimpse her in the distance. She was way ahead of me and quickly widening the gap.

“Nice job!” said a jogger who looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties as he ran toward me. He pointed back toward Holly. “Very good work!”

I’ll take a compliment wherever I can get one, but for the next ten minutes or so I puzzled over just what he meant. What were we doing that constituted a nice job and good work? Was it that I was out exercising with my child? When my son and I used to go running together regularly, strangers would often comment because it’s a little bit unusual to see a nine-year-old boy jogging, but Holly and I weren’t doing anything out of the ordinary. Lots of kids her age ride their bikes. Did he just mean that she was a good steady rider? Maybe. She is small for her age, so although most kids at seven and a half are competent riders, perhaps he was impressed with her skill, thinking she was younger.

Or, I thought, did he mean because I was letting her get so far ahead of me? As I’ve come to realize, there are a lot of adults from earlier generations who think parents my age hover too much. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, on this trail where many parents were biking so close to their kids that their wheels almost touched or else pulling them in bike trailers, that he was complimenting me for letting her ride at her own pace.

But her own pace grew faster and faster, and after she disappeared into the distance, I grew anxious. Compared to most parents we know, I give my kids quite a lot of leeway when it comes to personal safety, but not being able to see her at all in this setting alarmed me.

Still, I needed to keep running. I had over a mile to go before I’d be back at the park where the trail begins. I dearly hoped I’d find her when I got there, but there was nothing I could do in the meantime but keep moving forward. Stopping or slowing down certainly wouldn’t help the situation any when all evidence pointed to the likelihood that she was well ahead of me.

I worried that she had fallen and was hurt. I worried that someone had jumped out of the thick woods bordering the trail and snatched her. I worried that she had reached the park but then wandered into traffic there. And, too, I worried about what other parents must be thinking now that there was a child riding along the path with no accompanying adult anywhere in sight. The man who complimented me earlier might have been impressed that I let her go at her own pace, but that was when she was still within eyeshot of me. I wasn’t sure anyone would compliment me on this bit of recklessness.

The two miles unspooled as I ran at my usual steady but slow pace. I told myself all I could do was continue on to the park. When I got there either Holly would be waiting for me and everything would be fine or she wouldn’t and I’d need to act quickly to get help. One or the other.

So I had nearly twenty long minutes to worry about Holly’s well-being. Then I arrived at the park and there she was, standing next to her bike and beaming. The relief was tremendous, but I didn’t let on that I’d been worried. Nor did I want to scold her for riding so far ahead of me. She’s still new at biking and still developing her skills; if anything, I was impressed at how well she’d done. Although she’d soared far ahead of me, I didn’t really feel she’d done anything wrong.

But had I done anything wrong? I wasn’t sure. I thought again about the jogger who said “Good job!” Good job teaching her to ride a bike? Good job getting out together for a workout? Maybe. Not so good letting her get so far away from me, though – and then worrying about it for the remainder of the run.

But it all worked out. So I’m not sure what I’ll do differently next time we head to the Bikeway together. But whatever it is, I hope someone lifts my spirits with a quick, if ambiguous, compliment along the way.

Worry, worry, worry

"Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of its joy." Leo F. Buscaglia

In the wee hours of Sunday morning, I woke, anxiety-ridden, and lay in bed detailing to myself my worries. I was worried about the fact that I needed to get to church early to prepare for a small presentation I was giving, and I was worried that I would forget the materials I needed for the presentation (the written text I planned to read, plus my laptop to take notes during the discussion that would follow). I was worried it would be too hard to get up on time due to the hour of sleep lost to daylight savings. I was worried about the forecasted rain and whether we’d have problems with flooding. I was worried about how I would fit in my imperative daily run if the flooding was bad, and I was worried that the forecasted high winds would cause a tree to fall on me while I ran.

As I slept, I could hear the wind and rain; I woke worrying about how my mother’s flight home from London was going to be able to land the following night in such bad weather. I was worried that my daughter would dawdle throughout the morning and be late getting to her friend’s birthday party, and probably arrive in a cranky mood for having been rushed.

When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.” Winston Churchill

And then Monday I woke even earlier with even more worries. This despite the fact that as far as I knew, everything I had worried about before dawn on Sunday had worked out. I’d arrived at church on time and the presentation had gone great, as had the discussion afterwards. Holly had been good about getting ready for the party and had enjoyed it greatly once she was there. I’d fit in my run before the heavy rains started, and the forecasted heavy winds never arrived. When I’d gone to bed on Sunday night, my mother’s flight was still scheduled for an on-time arrival, though I didn’t know for sure that she’d landed.

Still, it seemed that by 4:40 AM on Monday, I had a whole new set of worries waking me. The flooding had indeed begun as predicted on Sunday, and our driveway was starting to wash out. I wasn’t sure how I’d get the kids to the bus stop if it was impassable by daybreak. I was afraid when daylight came I’d discover that the whole farm was under water. I didn’t know how I’d feed the cows if the barnyard was flooded; I wasn’t even sure the sheep would survive a flood. I worried and worried and worried.

Worry is like a rocking chair--it gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere.” Unknown

Meditation and other prescribed mind-calming measures don’t work for me at times like this. Instead, I arose from bed even though it was an hour earlier than I usually get up and tried to write out possible solutions to everything that was concerning me. Our house is built on a slab; even if the fields were flooded, the area around the house always stays dry, and I knew I didn’t really have to worry about that from the perspective of flooding. The woman who owns the sheep had been here the evening before; surely she had taken some kind of precautions if she thought they might be in danger. Getting the kids out to the road if we couldn’t get through in the car would just require leaving a lot of extra time, and if Holly balked too severely at walking in the flooded driveway, I could pull her in the wagon. My father, who’s the real farmer here – I just help with morning feedings – would surely know what to do if the barnyard was flooded. And there was no point, two hours before sunrise, in worrying about what I would see when the sun came up. I wrote all of this out and tried to let it go. I reminded myself that most of the time, getting up early is one of the best ways to counter worry: there’s quite a lot you can fix or prevent simply by having extra time to deal with it.

There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever” Mahatma Gandhi

And most of it turned out all right, except that when daylight broke I discovered the barnyard situation was even worse than I imagined: the entire pasture west of our driveway was under a foot of water. Rick headed out to work and called me to say the driveway had indeed washed away during the night and I shouldn’t even try to get the kids to school; it just wasn’t safe. So there went that worry. I called my father to express my concerns about feeding the animals, and he said he’d take care of it. One less burden on my shoulders. I saw for myself that the house and the land around it were still dry and not in any threat from the continuing rainfall at all.

I tried again to tell myself how unproductive worry is. My mom called a little later in the morning and said she’d safely arrived home from London and that dad had managed with the animals and they were all safe and well, even the sheep. Things were turning out okay.

Worry is such a bad use of time. Listing your problems and figuring out how to cope with them is such a better idea. Getting up early to solve things is often the best strategy of all. Simple guidelines to remember at fretful times like this. It’s not always that easy. But it’s a start.

Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.” Arthur Somers Roche