*image via.
I worry
About my son’s articulation, the way his mispronunciations alienate him from friends and frustrate him. We are in weekly speech therapy, and seeing progress, but how much and is it enough?
About loved ones, getting older — how many more holidays and clinked glasses and “I was just calling you because I saw the English muffins were on sale” are left?
About failed or embattled relationships – did I give fully of myself? Was I right or wrong, and does it matter anyway? I mourn the friendships, but were they healthy for me to begin with?
About my writing, currently dimmed and strained by the heft of my everyday life: how long will I sit beneath this waning moon?
About my own health: each doctor’s visit a crescendo-ing panic of “I’m sure I have cancer,” having lost or seen suffer too many loved ones in its nasty grip,
About my daughter’s moodiness: is this the way of all six year old girls, or have I done something wrong as a parent?
About my still-too-full days, brimming despite my valiant efforts to reduce the volume —
About my c-section scars that feel still-weird, and whose dimpled impression I tolerate but do not love,
About my awkwardnesses in certain social settings (having recently left a room and thought, ‘That…was not my best work’),
About the way I snapped at my son while I was frantically attempting to sign him up for a difficult-to-get-into summer camp last night,
About the timer I’d set for the camp registration, and was convinced would not go off,
About the summer ahead: not yet planned and registrations are filling up or full,
But
What good is this worry litany?
It imagines too many endings that never come,
and instead pile up in my lap, unwanted freight.
Michele de Montaigne wrote: “There were many terrible things in my life, and most of them never happened.”
Let me place these worries elsewhere. I am not strong enough to burn them, and I don’t like the image of locking them up somewhere, to multiply in intensity when I am too weak to keep the latch closed,
So instead, I will hang them in a closet in another house far away, only visitable after strenuous travel. They are there, but a long way gone.
Now, let me go out into my morning, and stand at the foot of Mount Helicon, and praise the day and what it might bring,
Scarred but fleeter-footed.
Post-Scripts.
+On reminding myself I’m where I need to be.
+On medical anxiety in the COVID/post-COVID age.
+On catastrophizing.
Shopping Break.
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+An easy way to get organized this January: add a purse organizer to your everyday tote!
+Chic $129 tweed blazer. Chanel vibes for less. The olive green color is new and head-turning!
+This always-popular rattan side table is back in stock.
+My recent Sezane order: these jeans, this sweater, this tee, and these socks.
+Inspo for working out: this cheery $30 sweatshirt, colorful weights, and this ribbed cropped tank.
+New swim options I’m eyeing: have heard so many good things about LSpace suits over the years, and I know several Magpies are evangelical about Matteau, which is deeply discounted here.
+Everyone’s favorite sweater blazer, on sale. Perfect buy for the new year.
+One of my favorite children’s boutiques, Danrie, currently has a great sale section that includes Northern Classics parkas, Huxbaby dresses, infant knitwear from Paz, and spendy but adorable Bobo Choses sweatsuits. We have a handful of Bobo Choses pieces and I always feel like my kids look like fancy French children who have cool parents in the music industry when they wear them — ha.
+These goodies from Target’s new collection with McGee are selling fast, and have been really popular among Magpies. Especially love this brass bowl.
+These wavy brass frames are so chic for special photographs.
+Still obsessed with my headphones and their little stand.
+Ordered myself a wick trimmer! Fun little object to keep out on a tray, too.
+Lots of Dorsey restocks this week — just saw that my favorite emerald earrings also came back! Wore these a lot over the holidays. So many compliments! People assumed they were heirloom / from my grandmother!