Proximity Worry

My kids call this syndrome “proximity bitching” but it’s really more about worrying than anything else. It seems the closer I am to my grown kids physically, the more I worry, which, I guess, factors into increased bitching (at least from their perspective).

Since, in any given year, I spend just eight weeks or so in Portland (two at Christmas, six in the summer), leaving forty-four weeks in Atlanta, poor Molly carries most of the burden of my anxiety. I worry about her school work, her health, her sleeping patterns, her money management, her cats, and her (lack of) cooking skills.

However, for the eight weeks I’m in Portland, Melissa and Billy are the lucky recipients of my hovering. Just recently, Billy had a series of severe headaches a doctor semi-diagnosed as cluster headaches. As you might guess, within twenty-four hours, I was an internet expert on the topic and the poor guy not only had the headaches to suffer through, he also had his mother texting him every few minutes with stupid messages like“how r u?” or "rate pain 1-10". In addition, after just a couple of days following Miles around, I’m already obsessing over him running out into the street, as if Melissa doesn’t handle Miles and the street all months other than Grammy months. Molly, on the other hand, is getting some time off as I have no idea what graduate projects she has due or what she’s burning for dinner.

I think proximity worry partially has to do with time zones. When I’m in a different time zone from my kids, I don’t fret as much. It’s almost like they aren’t living in real time. For example, when I wake up in Atlanta, it’s still the middle of night in Portland and I figure most people don't do anything really stupid just before dawn. Conversely, although Molly stays up too late and sleeps too late (in her mama’s opinion), it doesn’t bother me as much when I'm on west-coast time, since our personal clocks seem better synchronized from three time zones away.

When I was a young adult, having achieved the status of working woman, wife, and mother, I believed my parents were done with worrying about me, and they certainly didn’t seem to be overly interested in how I was doing, even though we shared a state and a time zone. They retired and traveled, had a cabin on a river in south Georgia, and finally built a retirement home on that same river. Of course, those were the days before cell phones, texting, Facebook, twitter, and Skyping brought immediate information on the good, the bad, and the ugly of us all into virtual proximity. As my parents were merrily puttering down the inter-coastal waterway, they weren't constantly checking their Blackberries for updates on my bad judgment.

I do remember my father being incredibly mad at me when Gary and I split up. Except for wanting his sympathy (which I didn’t get), I believed it really wasn’t my father's place to have an opinion on my screwed-up life. Boy, do I now see things differently. To continue with my somewhat wet analogy, Daddy thought his little girl was safely moored and battened down, and then, all of a sudden, she was back at sea, and unfettered at that. I now know his new worry probably caused his river putter to sputter a bit, knowing I was knee deep in life change.

Just recently, I was talking to Molly about my obsessive worrying and she pointed out that it probably has something to do with loss of control. When my kids were little, I drove them to school, took them to the doctor, and fed and bathed them. Although I did none of those things particularly well, I still accomplished them in my own way, in my own time. Now, my parental tasks involve mostly sitting and waiting - and worrying - and texting some.

I know mental health experts and well-meaning others would tell me to get out, to get a life, to volunteer, to get a turtle or a bird, to pray or meditate. I do use those stress-relieving and centering strategies (other than the turtle, the bird, or any real volunteering), but I have this weird philosophy, which pretty much says if I worry enough, nothing bad will happen. Take income taxes. If I obsess enough over how much I'm going to owe, the outcome will be good and I might even get some money back. Of course, an accounting course could also have a good outcome in that I would learn how to handle my taxes and what exactly to expect, but that accounting thing just sounds so boring.

Back to my kids. The one time I didn't worry about Molly and her health, she ended up in the hospital with emergency gall bladder surgery over Christmas vacation. Even when she showed up at my house with yellow skin and glowing eyes, I didn't worry, or at least I packed it away to be opened later with my winter coat and gifts for the grandkids. We boarded a plane for a cross continental flight with a Vegas layover and landed just in time for a breakneck trip to Good Samaritan and a family Christmas dinner in the hospital cafeteria.

And so, it seems I'll most likely continue to obsess and fret and do smart things and dumb things, worrying when I shouldn't and not focusing on real problems when I should. I'm pretty sure I won't be making any major changes as to how I navigate the world at this late date, so I'll just keep on putting one step in front of another as I stumble through life, figuring it out as I go along. It's not particularly pretty and it won't win any prizes, but so far, it's worked out pretty well.

Except for that layover in Vegas followed by emergency surgery in Portland part.

Worst-Case Scenario

It's been a tough week. My birthday plans were swept away by the rain and snow, I have an itchy rash on the back of my neck, and life has generally gotten in the way of my supreme happiness, which leads me to thinking about:

Worst-Case Scenario.

In my family, all conversations (and some endeavors) tend to, at some point, turn to the mention of worst-case scenarios. For example, when I'm flying into Portland to see my grand kids (and their parents), my last-minute phone commentary before boarding goes something like this: "Okay, I'll see you at baggage claim about eleven o'clock, two my time. If my plane is late, check on that board thingie. If for some reason, it doesn't take off at all, I'll call you as soon as I know." I go on vomiting all my worries out in search of any available cell towers until whichever kid of mine I'm talking to finally says something like, "Worst-case scenario, we'll be happy to see you by mid July," even though it's only early June. At that point, we'll have talked in general terms about plane crashes (which we always seem to survive, barely), the passenger sitting next to us coming back from the bathroom naked,therefore diverting our plane to Nova Scotia, the Portland Airport being demolished by either a monsoon or a meteorite, and my third born, Molly, having a gall bladder attack in midair, even though she no longer HAS a gall bladder, and she isn't on the plane with us anyway.

Do all families think like this? I imagine they probably do, although, hopefully, not to this extent. In my family, we take pragmatic problem solving and turn it into stream-of-consciousness calamity mongering. It's as if the worse we can imagine, the better the outcome, kind like positive thinking in reverse.

Molly tells a story about even worrying at a Metallica concert. I don't know much about the band, Metallica, but I'd imagine that most people who attend their concerts aren't in worry mode for a number of reasons. However, with the percentage who end up in the emergency room, abducted by strangers, or thrown into a holding cell, they probably should be. Because Molly was with two male friends, she felt the need to be in charge of worst-case scenarios all by herself. Josh was given the back-up car keys and A.J. was entrusted with the parking receipt, but Molly managed everything else including the concert tickets and the survival strategies. "If we get separated, let's meet at the Beers of the World kiosk. If that's already closed, I'll find you by the parking entry next to that Ramen Noodle place." Because Molly isn't stupid or overly nurturing, she ended with, "Worst-case-scenario, I'll see you guys tomorrow." The only flaw in her plan wasn't that they got separated or that the Beers of the World kiosk ever closed at all, but that her map of downtown Atlanta failed to include the latest ramp closings to I-75 south.

In an attempt to do actual research for this blog posting, I googled worst-case scenario and found that there's a "Worst-Case Scenario Survival Guide" I could order from Amazon, which might help to ameliorate my family's constant worrying. However, after looking at the teaser pages in the advertisement, I realized I'd just be opening up a Freud's Box of new, even scarier, worries. The book includes everything from having a bird caught in your hair, to a spurting artery, to a Tourette's episode (either yours or someone else's), to a suspicious buffet. A suspicious buffet? To my knowledge, no one I'm related to has EVER looked suspiciously upon a buffet, but now I'm a little worried about going to Ryan's Steakhouse. I guess, worst-case scenario, we could always have our stomachs pumped.

With income tax time coming around, I'm back to thinking about the gazillion dollars I'll owe, along with the federal agents who'll bang on my door at three a.m.; with spring, the nearly 100% chance of East African Killer Bee stings while sitting in my Atlanta living room; summer, death by drowning in the Piedmont Park Pool, although I spend summers in Portland, where, even at that time or year, it's too cold to swim.

Last Christmas, in a rare moment of putting a positive spin on things, my oldest, Melissa, and I brainstormed ideas for taking our anxiety-producing compulsions and turning them into a profitable enterprise. We were having a mother-daughter lunch and, as we sometimes do, we were comparing Portland to Atlanta. For some reason, perhaps our choice of beverage, the comparison this time had to do with liquor stores. In Georgia, all package stores are closed on Sunday as stipulated in the Bible. However, on days when they ARE open, you can drag all manner of children and babies into the store with you when you need to pick up a pint. In Oregon, you can never, ever take a child into an establishment that sells libations only, but alcohol can be sold on Sunday, even in a liquor store. Go figure.

Our idea was to own and operate a corner store called Worst-Case Scenario, open only on Sunday, which would have a drive-through to get around those pesky kids in the back seat. The store would primarily sell liquor at outrageous prices, but would also offer the morning-after pill, and, of course, milk and bread. We also thought about adding a bail bondsman to our list of services. Lottery tickets and prophylactics would be out as they wouldn't fit into our business plan.

But, of course we can't do that because, well, it would never work out. The bondsman would turn out to be a serial killer; an anxious swilling mom would back over the foot of her kid running rampant around the drive-through; our milk would go bad; the bread would get stale.

Back to worrying about those bees and the fact that I drive a Toyota.