balance?

i had a revelation today.
a staggering epiphany as it were.

    i was sitting downstairs when i looked at the clock and saw it was 8:30. hmmmmmm, lars is usually up by 8:30... maybe i just didn't hear him.
    and this is where my hands go all cold and get clammy. and i get that funny tight feeling around my heart & my stomach drops out... no. i'm sure he's fine. i get up to go check. {deep breaths.} composing myself as i fake a calm i don't feel. the agony of the question... what if he's not? ungh. be strong. he is. he's fine, it's ok.... but....?
and that was when it hit me. i stopped right there on the stairs.

                        i realized just exactly why it is that i worry.

                 i worry so that bad things don't happen *unexpectedly*.

    bad things happen. you can't avoid that. like a snake in the grass, they spring out at you. but, if you familiarize yourself with the snakes habits & habitats, this knowledge is power and it follows that, armed with this knowledge, one can at least avoid the shock of surprise.... right?
    like cosmic reverse psychology... if i expect the worst & anything better than *that* happens? well then i am free to be gloriously giddy and happy about life in general. well, all except for those horrifying & crippling moments that is.
    now, i've always been a worry-er and had accepted it as part of my nature. but my definition of "bad things" expanded by exponential proportions after charlotte died.
    before, bad things were getting a ticket, losing my wallet or rain on my day off. after, things were much different... darker & scarier. bad things now are terrible car accidents, losing my family & my home, my young son choking or falling, getting terribly and irrevocably hurt, my teenage daughter committing suicide or running away, incurable diseases.... terrible, terrifyingly vivid things that come, unbidden, in an instant and leave me shaken.

 obviously this is a flawed system. i definitely need to mull over these new insights.... seems some balance is in order.

 for mothers day this year my little family honored me with some wonderful gifts... gifts that are so much more than the object they physically are. sami gave me time spent laughing together (which is so important to a mother of  a teenaged girl), almost an hour of distracting the the brother at the greenhouse so i could perambulate & browse & choose some new lovelies for my garden AND one of her wonderful heart/spirit paintings. josh presented me with my very own and oft longed for serger machine... and time to putter in the garden in peace. all so very important things in a mothers life. the tools of my trade really... flowers and plants to beautify our outdoor spaces, art for the indoors, a useful tool to beautify my house and hopefully our bodies with lovingly made fun things from the studio... and the peace of mind and spirit to enjoy it all!