Transitions
21 August 2014 | Bethel Maine
Elizabeth
We are in countdown mode; if all goes well we hope to splash Skylark within three weeks, heading south shortly thereafter. We'll keep our fingers and toes crossed that our new Big Red is perky and smart, solid and reliable. A match made in Heaven, if you know what I mean. But as exciting as countdown mode is as a cruiser, it is also anxiety provoking for me. Could it be about leaving my mom who isn't getting any younger? Age is relative of course. She's about to turn 86, is perky, smart, solid and reliable just like we hope Big Red to be. She has a boyfriend, a French group that meets every Tuesday morning over coffee and danish and a multitude of friends. She takes classes at the Senior College, co-facilitates a Foreign Policy course each year and has taught a hugely popular theatre class. She is fiercely independent, sharp as a tack, physically capable and one of my best friends. Am I anxious to leave her without a plan for our next visit? Is that it or is there more that makes my heart race, thoughts overwhelming me? I feel ready to move back onto Skylark, my home and I look forward to the next cruising season, visiting new countries in South and Central America and exploring islands we missed the first three years. Am I ready to live with my husband again? We are both more than ready for that.
But still, the feeling that perhaps I'm missing something creeps up and lays it sticky hands on my chest, sitting there with a smugness I would kill off if I could. The twisted irony about anxiety is all I have to do is ask and it will tell me what it needs before continuing on its way. I just don't like to give it the time of day. You would think I would know better by now. My experience with anxiety both personally and professionally tells me the way to wrestle the beast is to invite it in to dinner. Share a meal, ask what it needs, what it wants. Then, make a deal, negotiate a settlement. There is a wonderful Buddhist story about inviting the monster in rather than barring the door and living in fear of it attacking you. So I've been sharing a meal with anxiety; we're having sleepovers, one-on-one times, intimacy at its best. And what am I learning? It's simple, really. Transitions and goodbyes are challenging. Relationships are my bread and butter in life. Predictability is my place of comfort but also my nemesis. I want adventure, new experiences, challenges...I want to be taken out of my comfort zone. And thus my anxiety is like a protestor residing inside me. "Where is the freakin' comfort zone??" it screams. "Get us back there NOW!" In our sleepovers, anxiety and I talk this through. We get to the other side, agree to venture forward trusting that the outcome will be worth it, that mom will continue to rock, that we'll visit each other sooner rather than later. I know this dance with anxiety very well. I know what it needs from me. I just wish it would get its own life. It's time it grew up, left home and stopped with all the visits.