Recently, a radio reporter asked someone who used the Harlem-Hudson Line if he would ever again consider riding in the first car of a train. The man, a former Marine, replied that he would, because “You can’t live your whole life being afraid.”
“Nonsense!” I wanted to tell him. “Of course you can! What your statement tells me is that you’re not even trying!”
Look at me. I’ve spent my whole life worrying. But am I so unique?
Of course, I unplug all the kitchen appliances before leaving the house.
But who doesn’t? Because who doesn’t remember that story about the coffeemaker left “on” that burned the house down?
And washing glassware – surely I’m not the only one who thinks, while soaping the inside of an iced tea glass, how thoroughly it would slice through my wrist if the glass broke, right now, while I’m sponging it?
Who doesn’t think, for just a moment when stepping into an elevator, “Is this thing going to trap me between floors?”
But maybe I should teach the advanced class. Because when I get on an elevator, I don’t just worry about getting stuck.
What really concerns me is the possibility – however small – that it will decide to plunge to the basement when I’m only half-way in. If you ever see somebody jumping in with both feet, that’s me.
People worry about air travel. Well, of course they do! Anytime I board a plane, I wonder: is this the one that will crash?
Maybe I should change flights? But if I do, will the new one crash, instead? And when I’m in my seat, I don’t just worry about turbulence.
I worry about the odds that my seat will be the only one sucked out of the plane, while the pilot lands safely with everyone else.
My husband, during one flight with me, decided that knowledge would set me free. (Or maybe it was really his arm, going numb, that he wanted to free instead.)
“What’s that noise?” I said during takeoff, digging my nails into his hand.
“It’s just the landing gear going up. When that’s done, you’ll see, the plane will fly much more efficiently.”
“You mean it isn’t efficient now? During takeoff, the hardest part of the flight?”
A little later I heard something else. “What’s that, now?” I asked, grabbing his arm from the armrest.
“It’s just the wing flaps. They’re changing altitude.”
“Why? What’s wrong with the altitude we had? Is there a storm up ahead? Is there a plane coming at us?”
He thought knowledge would set me free, but he was wrong. It only made me more of a prisoner.
For every squeak and rattle, instead of just vaguely fearing something was wrong, I now had ailerons, and wing flaps, and an entire plane-load of things to worry about, besides. What finally worked was the Valium.
Alas, they don’t hand out Valium just because you’re a mother (although maybe they should). When you become a parent, there are an infinite number of things to worry about, before the child ever arrives. Did I start the prenatal vitamins in time? Am I sure I’ve already had Rubella? What’s that twinge?
But somehow, once the baby is there, you are so overwhelmed with all the physical chores – feeding; changing; rocking them to sleep and placing them in the crib, then sinking slowly below their line of sight and creeping for the door, only to have them wake and spot you before you make it — that you lose sight of any worry more abstract than “Are they running a fever today? No? Good.”
I remember believing I could stop worrying when my boys were old enough to cross the street by themselves. Ha! That’s just when a whole new level of worry kicks in – what are they up to now, on their own?
Then they get their driver’s license.
“If I let him take the car out, in weather that’s keeping me home, will he be safe? If I don’t let him drive, who’s picking him up, in what? And if I say he can’t go at all, will he listen? Or will that just make me the butt of Thanksgiving jokes long after I’m gone?”
“Remember how Mom would never let us go out if it was raining?”
“Oh yeah. She was so crazy. Pass the gravy, someone.”
“And how ironic is it, she was killed in that freak elevator accident!”
My basic point is, you can’t win. But you can always worry!
