Courage to Jump
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Anxiety has been a constant companion for many years now. A few days ago I was chatting with B and telling her stories about the girl I used to be and realized that I was once quite fearless. Perhaps never fearless in social situations (oh yeah, I was shy-- usually awkward but occasionally verging on the painful level of shy) but as far as other things? I loved adrenaline rushes. Motorcycles appealed to me. I had a goal to go skydiving. I wanted to travel abroad, learn multiple languages, experience living in new places, jump into the adventures of love and parenting. B didn't disbelieve my stories, exactly, but she has a hard time seeing how I could have started out so differently and then grown into the woman I am now: a very risk-adverse one. Not one cell in my body has a desire to get on a motorcycle ever again. Skydiving? Perhaps the indoor version, if I can get over the anxiety of going to a business that I've never been to before. (Yes, my anxiety has extended to causing stress over going into any unfamiliar establishment, though I can usually face it if I need to.) I've always struggled with claustrophobia and elevators have been a challenge, but I literally walked up 22 flights of stairs during a recent hotel stay rather than deal with the panic the elevators currently cause. Back in the day in New York, I visited both the Empire State Building and the original World Trade Center and I did not insist on taking the stairs! (To be fair, I wouldn't climb 100 flights today to get out of an elevator ride but might just skip the sightseeing altogether, depending on how sketchy the elevator appeared.)
I don't know what's changed. Hormonal stuff has got to be part of it. (My hormones are an out-of-balance tangled mess-- I should give another health update but that's too much to go into here. Let's just say I had another blood transfusion and a D&C and we're currently in limbo wondering if my body will finally just launch into menopause and be done with it. I wish. I'm so tired of the never-ending period. My official diagnosis is "abnormal uterine bleeding." *sigh*) But I wonder if social media/the internet isn't partly to blame. We can't help but hear about worst-case scenarios all the time. Not that this is new-- "if it bleeds, it leads" did not originally refer to the internet-- but I swear that stupid algorithms continue to make sure my brain is in a constant "fight or flight" state. Not helpful.
Yesterday I read a short article from a newlywed who is ready to tackle her future without fear, and while I love the marriage advice she espouses ("if you want something to last forever, you treat it differently"), what really struck me in her article was this:
Now I want to clarify that I am not under the illusion that I can control every aspect of my happily ever after. I know that Adam and I have many years ahead of us that will bring trials; likely trials that if I knew about now, may make me want to want to crawl into the corner of my closet and stay there. But what is the good in focusing on what could go wrong?
I didn't have the blissful wedding day she experienced (it was one of the first times I can remember experiencing out-of-control anxiety-- starting your period the morning of your wedding day is not a recipe for calm), but it was still a beautiful day with a beautiful start to an eternal relationship. I knew there would be hard things ahead of us, but I trusted in God that He would help us get through it, and I looked forward to the future with excitement.
Boy, oh boy, if I had known I was facing miscarriages, post-partum depression, months of bedrest, mental health challenges of multiple stripes, eating disorders, car accidents, "one in a million" illnesses, covid shutdowns and the masking, online school from hell, autism, and addiction, I'm not sure I would have had the courage to get out of bed the day of my wedding. The thing is though, refusing to marry Terence or to have kids out of fear wouldn't have spared me all that drama. Some of it, yes. (Though I suspect other challenges would have filled in the void.) It would have, however, stripped my life of almost all of its joy.
Somehow, I need to convince my brain to quit focusing on what could go wrong. The challenges I'm facing at any given time are enough to worry about. I don't need to borrow more fear from "What if...?" I do have joy in my life. I have
a strong, amazing husband who wraps me in his arms and holds me up, I have five incredible children who each shine brightly in this world of turmoil, and I have a God who has not left me alone through all of the trials. Take that, anxiety!
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