The cockeyed optimist thinks the glass is half full.  The hangdog pessimist thinks the glass is half empty, and I am happy to have a glass because it can always be refilled.  However, because I am an habitual  worrier, I am always concerned about a possible crack in that glass.

My Mother was a worrier, and I swore to myself that I wouldn’t follow her example.  Unfortunately, I inherited the worry gene that I am now trying to expunge. The problem is that I tend to worry about things over which I have no control such as “World Peace”—Or— “Will the grocery store be out of my favorite milk?”

I do realize that the light at the end of the tunnel doesn’t always have to be an on-coming train, but—“What if it is!” I do have lots of self control and know that worry should not cost my peace of mind, so I try to lessen my diet of daily television news.  That helps until I open my newspaper, and the problems become more local than national. The choice is between getting sucked up in a vacuum or a vortex of worry— or totally dumbing down.

I do sleep like a rock.  I guess that is because I have a good conscience…or have no conscience at all. But sometimes, even in my sleep, worry worms slide their way into my dreams such as— “Did I set the alarm clock?”  or “Will my ride be on time” and— “Will the traffic (at four o’clock in the morning) make me late?”—even though I checked all of those things before going to bed the worry anxiety takes hold.

I have been trying to work on this problem, and maybe I have made some progress, because a recent dream presented me with a solution.  I dreamed that I opened the pocket door to my living room and the room was filled from floor to ceiling with colorfully decorated clay bowls. I didn’t know what to do so I closed the door.  After a few minutes, in my dream, I opened the door again and  the bowls were gone!  However, now the room was filled from floor to ceiling with colorfully decorated clay cups.  So, I closed the pocket door again.  Then I woke up.

In the morning, I hesitated to open the door, but when I did there were no bowls or cups—just my living room. Maybe it meant that I should close my mental pocket door when trying to figure out solutions for all of those problems in the world that I can never even hope to solve.  Maybe I should just close the door and not worry about other events or  people so much. But what if I slam that mental pocket door on my own nose.  Then—-WHOS’S GOING TO WORRY ABOUT ME?

Esther Blumenfeld