Is worry your constant companion?
Most who know me think I am a relatively laid back person. However even though I don’t really “do stress” I still worry.
I can remember even as a child worrying. I worried about small things, like friends, fitting in, homework and tests.
As a teenager I continued to worry. Funnily enough it was still about friends, fitting in, homework and tests.
My Dad got Motor Neurone Disease when I was in my late teens. I took on a whole host of new worries most especially how we could live if he died.
I moved into my twenties and my pal worry came with me. I worried about coping with my Dad, his dying, my mothers grief and my final exams which I had to sit just six weeks after my fathers death.
I married and along came my children. 
From the moment of conception those “darlings” caused angst.
Would I miscarry? Would the baby be okay? Would I survive the pain?
Then they arrived. Were they drinking enough? Sleeping enough? Why were they crying? Could they have meningitis? (It is never just a cold).
It never ends.
Some mornings when I wake early I lie in bed and a trainload of worry appears. However just as I feel it become unmanageable I sit up and I remember.
I remember a conversation I had with my Dad as a young twenty one year old. It was shortly before he died. We were speaking of my concerns about something that was happening at work. My Dad was lying in bed and was most uncomfortable, unable to move. I was holding his hand and he squeezed it. I looked at him and he said, in a barely audible tone, “I remember I used to worry about work. Now someone else does”.
I was taken aback. It really put my worry in context. As with most worries it was unimportant and would in time pass. All the years my Dad had worried about work, but for what? When at the age of 50 he retired to die he was quickly replaced.
As we sat together that day, my Dad knew his time remaining with us was short.
Now that was a real worry!
Last week one of my closest friends lost her very precious thirteen year old son.
She had spent a year worrying. Hoping he was one of the 80% who would survive.
If we really think of what she has gone through, and all she has to face, can we really say we have worries?
So tomorrow morning when the time between waking and sleep is interrupted by my constant companion, I will try to remember, that those worries are not really worries at all. In fact I am living a charmed life regardless of what those early morning or midnight thoughts try to tell me.
Count your blessings, not your troubles.
photo credit: Lynda Giddens via photopin cc
My thoughts on a page. 
Great post. When my kids worry, I always tell them to measure the problem against “Is anyone dead as a result? Is anyone likely to die as a result?” and I tell them if they answer is no, then we can find a solution to their worry. Might sound a bit morbid, but like you said, if you have been close to someone who has passed away, it puts everything else in context.
My thoughts are with your friend and her family. XX
You’re right it is only morbid to those who haven’t been there. In the past few weeks the extreme abnormal is normal.
I do think we can and should teach our children to control what they worry about, but sometimes it’s a bit like “do as I say not as I do!”.
Thanks for your kind thoughts we can do with all the help we can get.
I try, I try, every day, to only count my blessings and not my worries, but I find it so very hard to do it! By day, I can control my thoughts and wrest them away from the darkness. By night, though, it is my darkest fears and worries and neurosese that shake me awake and keep my heart racing.
Isn’t is amazing how we lose the run of our thoughts by night? I usually get up if that happens and within minutes all is in proportion.
ye, tric, up are so right about this )
It’s one thing to write it, another to live it. We can but try.
Tric, this is SO spot on. Very soon my child will have a child. And I haven’t stopped worrying about her as my child. It is worry after worry. I try, every single night, to go through my thank yous. To be grateful. I would much rather be kept awake by my gratitudes instead of my worries. This spoke to me on so many levels. Thank you for sharing it. I am so sorry for your friends.
Thanks Colleen. It is so difficult at the moment to go on as before yet everything has changed. However I can honestly say at the moment none of my worries seem relevant. This has really shrunk them.
Is your daughter, actually expecting?
Ah! I found the comment. 😉 Not any more she isn’t! 🙂
I can believe that none of the worries seem relevant. It’s amazing how a life, and the loss of that life, can so change our perspective. He is truly one of your blessings.
I love your Dad’s statement. How true that is. What do we really have to worry about? A flat tire, uptight coworkers, a smaller raise than we’d hoped for? None of that is important in the grand scheme of things. Thank you for this great and needed reminder.
I suppose worry is part of human nature. We all do it, but this has helped focus me on what really matters.
Thanks for always reading and commenting. I always enjoy reading your input. Sorry I’m a bit tardy these days replying, I know I’ll return to normal soon. x
I’m guilty of worrying, but when I think it over, the only solution is to get the source of the worry into context, face it head on and try to solve it. YOur Dad was so right – with hindsight, half of the things that make our guts flip over aren’t worth worrying about.
Sorry I’m so late replying. I’m semi motivated these days, enjoying the interaction but not on form to reply. What is there really to worry about in life if we have our health and enough money to survive. Easier said than done though!
I loved this! I always worry too! It is amazing when you realize how lucky you are, when others have such serious hardships! I Just wish this feeling would stay with us always.
yes we need a kick up the ass every now and then, but the kick us two have had recently is a bit extreme!