Welcome to my journal! It echoes my thoughts and feelings as I journey through life, I hope you connect with what you read. If you enjoy this journal, please subscribe.
I worry. This morning, I woke up ten minutes before my alarm went off. In the darkness, I stirred, and when I noticed I was awake, I immediately became concerned that I had overslept. Tension gripped my body until I checked my phone. Relief rushed through me when I saw that I still had time left. This alarm-checking is an unfortunate habit I’ve picked up lately. Every night I check that my alarm is on before I get into bed. Then, some nights, while I lie in the dark, I begin doubting whether my alarm really is on. I get up and cross the room so that I can squint at my phone screen to confirm that I have, indeed, set an alarm for the morning. The truly absurd part of my behaviour is that the alarm is set to automatically repeat every day. I specifically created one I wouldn’t have to check every night in an attempt to save myself from unnecessary worry. If I never touch the app again, my alarm will continue to wake me according to my schedule, reliable as ever. I struggle to rely on it, though. I struggle, too, to believe that the alarm will go off once I’ve set it. Whenever I take a nap, I set a timer for myself. During said nap, I wake up, cross my room, and check that the timer is still ticking; just as I did this morning when I compulsively checked my alarm, fearing I was already late. I haven’t got any trauma with oversleeping. There is no embarrassing story behind my nervousness. I haven’t got any reasonable explanation for my behaviour at all. I am simply ruled by worry, and I am planning a coup. Side note: My naps have become significantly more frequent this year. I suspect that it has something to do with au pairing for three children under the age of eight, or maybe being twenty-four years old is far more exhausting than being twenty-three.
After my extra ten minutes of snoozing this morning, I sprang out of bed and got dressed. As I did, I noticed a strange pressure in my chest. Though I could breathe properly, it felt like someone was sitting on my ribs. At random intervals I felt a sharper pain under my sternum, and I had a vague sense that my heart was beating too quickly. When I climbed a single flight of stairs at the train station, my heart began racing. It shook in my chest as if I had just run ten kilometres. The pain worsened, too. It felt a little almost like the curious, uncomfortable bubbling of indigestion, only far higher, and centred in my rib cage. The pain was unexpected, and I was quickly concerned. Amidst groping my chest for a solution, I began to think about my tendency to worry. The more I moved my body and thought about all the odd things that might be going on inside me, the more apparent the discomfort became. I wondered if my worrying had brought about the pain. I tried breathing. I noticed, then, how tense my body was. My face was pulled into itself, taut with concern. My shoulders were tightly pulled into my sides, and I stooped as I walked. I tried breathing again, this time focusing on unwinding my face and shoulders. The pain vanished shortly after I woke up, and whatever triggered it hasn’t happened again since. The whole bizarre episode has left me wondering: Was it all caused by my worry? And, wonderfully paradoxically, I am now worried about how much I worry.
It’s not just the fear of oversleeping—though I am struggling with that at the moment. I worry what my employers think of my work. I worry that they secretly feel that I am incompetent. I worry that I am not learning German fast enough. I worry that I am unemployable, that despite all my best efforts, I will be denied every career opportunity, and that the only viable job left will be as a bus driver. I worry that I am cursed to pack shelves in a dimly lit store, regardless of how many skills I learn or how hard I push myself to grow. I worry that I will go bald (as with my chest, I’m sure the worrying negatively affects the outcome). I worry that I will ultimately misspend my life, never having lived up to my potential. The worry sits in my throat like sick, warm and liquid. None of it is warranted. None of it is reasonable. Both logic and fact suggest that the chances of my worries coming to fruition are essentially zero. I don’t think that I will ever become a bus driver. I am not cursed to a menial job, though I may still have one at some point in my life. I trust that the family I work for would voice any complaints they have about my job performance. I may one day go bald, but my family has already assured me that they will still love me if I do. I spend my time fearing things that will never happen. I am not immobilised by fear—I can drink a lemonade with friends without checking a clock or wondering about my career. My morning shocked me, though. I don’t want to give worry a foothold in my life. I’m not sure that the pressure in my chest was brought on by worry, but I certainly don’t want to continue worrying at the rate I do and find out which health concerns can be induced.
I don’t know how yet, but I need to worry less. I need to learn to trust that everything will be okay and that if it isn’t, I’ll be able to tackle the challenge.
I also worry that if I leave chocolate in the kitchen cupboard, someone else will eat it. That, of course, is completely reasonable, though. If you enjoyed this journal, please send it to someone you love.