Sure, it’s 71 degrees today, but tomorrow it’s guaranteed to be 30 below. Drop the other shoe already and let’s get on with this winter.
Why I am this way, I don’t know, but I always expect something bad after something good, and I always feel an obligation to report the bad with the good.
“How’s life?” you ask.
“Good, you know, not perfect, but good.”
“I have my health, so far.”
“My kid is happy, today.”
“I have a roof over my head, now.”
And so go my shoe-dropping responses.
God forbid that I sound fortunate.
I’m not sure if my realistic replies are in the name of honesty or just a technique to ward off the inevitable: Being candid about my bad news as well as my good news may be enough of an offering to the bad forces to keep them away, I reason with myself.
The alternative is to knock on wood every 30 seconds. I already do that for added protection.
The change of season doesn’t help. As the temperatures drop, my shoulders rise. As the humidity evaporates, my body cracks. There’s not enough lip gloss in the world to get me through the day. I’m dehydrating as we speak.
And … I worry all the time.
Well, not all the time. I’m very good at keeping busy and distracting myself until my head hits the pillow and then, boom! Bring on the worst-case scenario of every scenario I can envision. Sometimes I want to hit myself over the head with a wooden plank. Go to sleep, already!
I’ve read that women worry more than men, but that our worrying helps us live longer than our laid-back counterparts. The theory is based on the idea that women are more risk-averse than men. We worry that our parachutes won’t open, so we don’t jump out of planes.
All this is changing as our risk-taking daughters enter the world. These girls are my role models.
When I was little, I worried about the Russians coming. Remember the movie “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming”?
It was a Hollywood comedy made in 1966 about a Soviet sub that runs aground off New England (New England!). Men are sent for a boat but many villagers go into a tizzy, risking bloodshed, according to the synopsis of the movie on IMDb.
I went into a tizzy about the Russians coming for about 20 years until the early 1980s, when I started worrying about a nuclear plant meltdown. My fear of a nuclear plant meltdown kept me busy for quite a while.
Out of desperation, I shared this fear with my father, who said, as we were driving down Route 2 in Canaan, Maine, on our way to nowhere: “Jolene, I don’t think that’s going to happen to us way up here.”
His words were enough to stop my worrying until the 1990s, when I became a parent and started worrying about raising a human being. Like a dog on point, I parented.
And just about the time that I got used to the idea of raising a human being, Sept. 11, 2001, happened. A real tragedy, not a movie and not some exaggerated fear I had concocted.
On a stunningly beautiful Tuesday in September, with a sky the color of cobalt, an event that merited real worrying took place. It was a beautiful day, and then it was tragic. The shoe dropped.
As it turns out, there are many stunningly beautiful days in September that will always remind me of that one Tuesday way back when.
The unpredictability of the weather, being a parent and the onslaught of catastrophic world events keep me waiting for the other shoe to drop every day.
This fixation may help me live longer, but it’s no way to enjoy the beautiful weather.
If you are like me – relax, already.
Jolene McGowan lives and works in Portland with her husband, daughter and dog and has no plans to leave, ever. She can be contacted at:
respondtoportcitypost@gmail.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
