Normally I am not a worrier. Mind you, I used to be… back in the distant past, back when I was a new mom. I think that is normal. My mom was also a worrier. She worried about me (some very valid worries, actually, as it was her worry and her follow through that kept me alive and allowed me to grow and thrive, despite having the quarter-size hole in my heart with which I was born.) And she continued to worry (much more than I felt was reasonable when I became first a young woman and then a mother. And she worried about the kids, her grandbabies, too.
One of the things I was working on, as part of my maturing and spiritual growth, was letting go of worry. Most times it is not productive at the least and counter productive at the worse and it was a habit I needed to be free from. I had the bright idea, since Mom was going to worry anyway (after 60+ years, I didn’t see any threads that it was a habit on the wane in her life) that I would make her my “designated worrier.” We talked about it, she laughed and we had an agreement. Whenever there was something I was inclined to worry about, I’d visit mom — or if I had to, call her — and give her the jist of the matter and hand it off to her. When the situation had resolved to the point that worry was not longer appropriate, I’d contact her and “turn her off” the task. Strange as it sounds, this wack-a-doodle plan worked, for the most part. After a few years, in a moment of introspection, I realized that not only was I not worrying, I was not “handing off” may situations to the designated worrier.
Mom died some years later, as we all must. I will admit to a bit of panic at the time, though I had not used her “services” for a year or more. WHO would be my worrier, I wondered. By the time I needed one, I just passed it off to the Universe at large with the thought “can’t do anything about it, so….” and didn’t look back.
Today, though, I realized that while I have not been really worrying, of late, I have been projecting shades of what plague me one day onto the coming day. This is mostly concerning my sometimes very painful knees and my town job that requires me to be mostly on my feet for from 4 to 8 hours. Unlike here at the farm, I cannot always work my flow to alternate tasks that stress my knees with those that allow them to rest. And since my schedule both at the farm and at the store constantly change, some times there are protracted periods when the knees hurt and yet just must be made to perform, regardless.
Some times, though, the just don’t hurt — or don’t hurt enough to count… with no cartilage in either knee, I am loath to say they don’t hurt, period. I suspect my high pain tolerance and ability to just keep going masks some of it. And some times, for no appreciable reason it seems, they take a spell of just giving me fits regardless. I wonder if changes in the weather are at the root of pains that do not seem to be associated with over use, but have not yet made a determination on this.
Be that as it will, their capriciousness does tend to set me on edge and is a major factor in my projection onto the morrow of today’s pain. I notice it especially when tomorrow brings harder chores or, like today, longer hours than I have worked in more than a month.
I went to bed last night, grateful to be off my feet and pain free (often the knees stop hurting when the no longer have to bear weight, but not always). And I woke up this morning, facing an 8 hour day of constant standing and walking, very apprehensive.
And nothing happened. The knees did not give me fits. Honestly, I was not even aware of them most of the time. I did my job, stopped by a friend’s house, hit the grocery store and came home. It was on the drive home that the thought struck me “Don’t borrow from tomorrow.”
So with that thought in my mind, I am re-committing to let each day dawn anew; I will not “borrow” the good hours with my mind and replace them with painful ones. If I hurt, I hurt and I will keep going, but the pain will stay in the hour and day of its own. And if I do not hurt, I will not “borrow” the painful hours that may lurk in day ahead.
“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”
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