Mid-Night Worrying

Philippians 4:6-7 Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (NLT)

 2:45 AM and I am awake, regretfully wide eyed by the knowledge of the bills due in days, again, heart pounding, blood cold, and all the past success forgotten in the worrying. It isn't like I have ever not had bills that equal or exceed the income or that I am in danger of going homeless or hungry but the constant balancing act is exhausting.  Suddenly even the little indulgences feel like extravagances I need to avoid.  We used to go to the movies a lot, or rent videos and now we are thinking of cutting out even the TV. The Cost of everything keeps climbing but the paycheck stays the same or even shrinks.

Finally I Remember an exercise in meditation that I learned from a wonderful Drama Teacher back in Northwest Community College days. I close my eyes and imagine that I am walking down 100 stairs to a beautiful beach, and as I slowly count my way down the stairs, I breath and focus on leaving my troubles behind me.  I visualize getting closer to peaceful beauty and feeling the breeze and smelling the salt air and hearing the waves and the gulls.  Soon I am breathing easily and relaxed enough to go back to bed.

Of course, being able to sleep doesn't mean that the problems are solved, but it does mean I can drop the incapacitating panic and find the energy to ask myself where the solutions lie.  My problems are not new, and I'm not in them alone.  I have a old, rattletrap home and enough food to pack on more weight than I should carry and make me need to wash dirty dishes on a regular basis.  I have a family to support, and they love me.  My problems might feel overwhelming, but really they are not problems at all.  They are merely a side-effect of being alive.

I am so grateful for the people and the places in my life, when I remind myself to be.  Learning to be positive is so much of the battle.  I feel alone and overwhelmed and then my head goes round and round and I get nowhere.  I have some o the same problems I had 20 years ago because I am afraid of changing them.  How dumb is that?  I have a wonderful husband who has walked beside me since 1982 and loved me when I worked full time, and when I was so depressed I didn't get out of bed.  When I was eager and happy, and when I was angry and a Bitch.

We are having a hard time financially and I hate it.  I feel like this daffodil trying to bloom in the middle of bare thorny ground.  I gave up a full time job and stayed home with my toddlers.  I am so glad I had that time with them, and when they went to school, I went as a substitute and a parent volunteer.  And it worked.  I have been a success.  My husband and I have raised two wonderful young men, and that is a major achievement.  We have stayed together and loved each other for thirty years.  That is success.  I wrote and published two novels and people love them.  My husband has been the most loved and amazing music teacher for 23 years.  We are successful, unless you check the bank account, and look at what we can give the boys to start their adult life.  And so my brain begins again to feel guilty and second guess the past decisions, I should have worked full time, I should have saved for their college instead of taking them to Wyoming every year to visit the grandparents.  They did not need to go to Disneyland.  BUT YES, they did!

They needed to experiences and the attention and the love that made them who they are today.

I just wish it was more.

I wish I could make everything smooth and easy, but even as I wish it, I know that the most exhausting, difficult times of my life are the times I was most alive.  I know I have rarely had everything I wanted, but always had everything I needed and I try to trust that they will too.  The news makes trust hard, so I turn off the news and talk to the people.

The people and the world around me make trust easy.

Life is beautiful, and good, and HARD and so Worth it.

And spring always comes back, and Joy comes in the morning.