Chicken Little

When I grow up I'm going to stop worrying.

For now, I try to frame my worrying in a better light. I'm not worrying, I'm being conscientious. I've taken all the variables into consideration, and after weighing them thoroughly, I've come to the obvious conclusion that the only possible outcome of the situation is disaster. There! Now, pass me that roll of fruit-flavored Tums.

Ev calls this thinking "the sky is falling" and she adamantly refuses to join me in it, much to my considerable consternation. It never occurs to her that if she's not going to worry, I have to worry be conscientious twice as hard!

It just makes good sense to worry be conscientious about, say, losing your job because you burned your hand and you had to take sick leave when the office is short-staffed. They might think you faked this injury to have some time off. Even if you show them the nasty, burned, blistered evidence, they might be just looking for an excuse to kick you to the curb when your usefulness is gone. A person can't just sit home on her ass putting bacitracin ointment on her frittered flesh and not worry be conscientious about such a possibility.

Or, say your partner heads off on a 1600 mile trek and doesn't call to check in from every available phone booth along the route. Someone who isn't conscientious might assume she's fine just because she loves to drive, knows how to fix cars, is known to wander for pleasure and made her living behind the wheel of a vehicle for most of her adult life. But a conscientious person thinks about the possibilities. The truck might have broken down out in the middle of nowhere. She might have fallen asleep at the wheel. She's still carrying her old Arizona driver's license, so the authorities wouldn't even know how to contact me. We're lesbians. They wouldn't even know there's a me to contact! You have to consider the possibility that after you waited 49 years to find this one perfect person to share your life with and then fell slap-happy in love, fate could just kick the crap out of you for the hell of it and snatch her right off the planet, leaving you with four cats, a frittered hand and no job! If you're a worrier conscientious, you know that's just the sort of fucked up shit Fate would do.

Plus, if you don't worry aren't conscientious, you miss the warm glow of going back to work and finding out they didn't even expect you today, and having them fuss over you and tell you how much they missed you and how relieved they are that you're okay. Or finding out that the love of your life is alive and well and sitting in a Jacuzzi in Deming, New Mexico with a cold beer, the truck ran great and she didn't ever stop because she didn't need to.

Worry is the debbil.

One of these days, I'm going to stop doing it. It'll lower my blood pressure, aid my digestion, diminish the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, improve my posture and add years to my life. Ev will appreciate it, too.

Kwach