It takes a worried man

Or a worried Mom, in this case.

Ken and I went down to visit my Mom today, and found her in good spirits. As always, she needed to feed us first, so we chatted while we had lunch. She admitted that she had a bad night last night and cried a lot, but this time it wasn’t about Dad...it was about my sister Diana flying to China.

Diana and her husband and a couple of friends are going with a large group to spend about a week in China. They found a good deal and just decided to do it. (There’s that grabbing life by the horns thing again...it’s the way to live!) Mom wasn’t upset about them going or anything, but hearing that the flight from New York to China (I forget which city they’re flying into) was going to be 16 hours just wigged her out. Di had texted me that Mom was pretty upset about it, so I said I’d try to talk to her about it today.

She seemed mostly over it, but I hate it that she spent several hours worrying and crying over this. I realize that she has an extreme fear of flying, and I’m certain that we’ll never get her on a plane. It doesn’t matter how many statistics we throw at her about the safety of flying, she just hears “plane” and freaks out. I told her that Ken and I were probably at greater risk of a fatal accident on our Route 66 trip than Di and Tom are on these flights. I try and try to get Mom to not fret so much about these things; she agrees in theory, and realizes that it does no good, but she keeps right on fretting.

I think when Dad was around, he was able to pull her back from such relentless worrying. She’s always been a worrier—in fact, I’d say that it runs in her side of the family—but I hate to see her crying about things like this...things that have an infinitesimal chance of happening. I admit that I have a tendency towards worrying, too, which I obviously get from Mom. But I’ve worked to moderate, negate, and deflate it by doing my best to think logically and rationally, and to work it through in my mind. If I thought about everything that can kill us out in the world, I’d probably never leave the house! I just refuse to live my life in fear, and I refuse to let such fears keep me from living a fun and full life. I wish I could impart a little of my attitude to Mom, just so she wouldn’t make herself miserable with thinking such negative thoughts. But I don’t think there is any changing her at this point, so we just have to try to talk her through it, and sometimes she just has to work through it on her own.

Something else I get from my Mom is a stubborn streak about a mile wide. Oddly enough, that seems to be enough in me to counteract the “worry gene.” As in, screw you, whatever or whoever you are, you are not going to harsh my mellow or fuck up my joy. Some things take a little longer than others, but I always find my joy in the end. (I’m now thinking of the hilarious scene in “Ted” when Mark Wahlberg and Ted sing The Thunder Song. That is very much me.)

I wish I could impart a little of that defiance to my Mom, but I know it doesn’t work that way. All I can do is keep telling her, “Mom, you can’t let these things get to you so much. You can’t let them make you this upset.” But with that stubborn streak of her own, she isn’t going to listen and take it to heart until SHE is ready!

In the meantime, I’ll be over here singing “Fuck you, thunder, you can suck my dick,” and as Devo says, “I may be worried now, but I won’t be worried long.”

Ms. Antsy Pants

I don’t know what was wrong with me last night, but jeez, I was on pins and needles.

I was online for a while, but I grew impatient with that. I read a few things, but didn’t want to spend more time on there. I closed up shop and tried to sit on the loveseat and read my book; I had a terrible time concentrating. I had “Saturday Night Live” on (a rerun), and wasn’t finding much funny. The only thing that grabbed my attention was Paul McCartney as the musical guest, and I kind of dug that. While waiting for him to play again, I tried reading some more, and I just could not get into it!

It’s a rarity for me to feel that much at odds. I’m usually quite content to curl up with a book and get lost in it, but something was causing me to be completely distracted.

I thought about it for a bit (when I’m not feeling quite myself, I try my best to figure out what is going on...that helps me deal with it), and the only thing I can figure is that it was Hurricane Irene. That bitch! When I was online, I was checking updates from all my east coast friends. I was checking on friends I’ve met, friends I haven’t met, and people like Alec Baldwin and Bumblefoot and F. Paul Wilson. I was watching for weather updates and trying to get the latest on what the hurricane was going to do. I felt a deep-seated sense of unease and dread, wondering what would happen to friends and strangers alike.

Maybe it’s because I remember how scared I was earlier this summer when that really bad weather came through, with a real potential for tornadoes. Until I went down to the basement, Shane was updating me online, and when I was holed up downstairs with Sheeba, Ken stayed on the phone with me until it passed. I remember feeling somewhat comforted to have that contact, rather than just being terrified all by myself. Last night, I worried about anyone who was going to have to deal with the winds and the flooding, and just hoped that they would ride out the storm as best as possible.

I have to work at not being a worrier. I make a conscious effort to understand that I can’t control such things, and fretting about it does no good. I had a similar conversation with my Mom today (although for different reasons), and said that she worries about things that worrying won’t fix. I said that I know it’s easier said than done, but sometimes you just have to realize that worrying is pointless. All the worrying in the world last night wouldn’t change anything for any of my friends, or anyone on the east coast. All you can do is hope for the best, but especially hope that they’ve prepared well and know what they’re in store for. I have smart friends, so I knew they were ready. I’m sure people will still be checking in for a while, but those who have are mostly okay.

So while I’m thinking about everyone dealing with the storm or its aftermath, I’m going to trust in your intelligence and fortitude, and hope that you catch a break from Irene. But I’m going to keep telling myself that frets are for guitars.