Tag: wonder and worry

My Future Wonderings

.Reading time 13 minutes.

 

My Future Wonderings.jpg
Photo credit: Noel Walker Photography

I’ve been thinking about the future (as one does, this time of year), and it’s ever so slightly depressing because if the future is anything like the present, it will involve more waiting.

And waiting sucks.

“Wait” is pretty much my least favorite word, like, ever. I think the hardest thing lately about waiting on God, waiting to find out about a job, waiting to see my family again, waiting for a husband, etc. is the wondering.

I get into “wondering spirals” in which I wonder what my future man will be like; what our story will be; if I will be a bridezilla; what my wedding will look like; if my marriage will be happy; what it will be like to live with a man; what kissing and sex are like; which parenting techniques I’ll take from my mom and which ones will be different; if my husband and I will still be attracted to each other when we’re old and frumpy.

Wonder, wonder, wonder. Any ONE of those things can make me spiral for hours. I’ve probably lost several cumulative months of my life just to the wondering about the future.

I texted a friend who got married recently and said, “One of the best things about being married has got to be that you don’t have to wonder anymore.”

Sometimes, I feel a responsibility to the wondering – like if I don’t wonder about it, I won’t be prepared for it, and Read More

My Useless Worry

.Reading time 11 minutes.

I used to worry.

I would worry about real stuff. One time, my roommate was getting married and moving out, and I worried myself almost sick about where I was going to move and who I was going to live with.

I would worry about fake stuff. When I was a kid, “To Be Continued” episodes would keep me up nights, worrying about the characters.

I would even make up stuff to worry about. My favorite “go-to” reason for worrying was the thought of my parents’ both dying at the same time, leaving me to fight the legal system so I could get custody of my underage siblings. And if I did get custody, then how would I support them? And would I be able to homeschool them? That hypothetical scenario could keep me going on worry for HOURS.

I worried, basically, whenever I wasn’t in control of a situation in which there was a questionable end. I worried because worry was my way of trying to maintain some sort of control. I even said to myself once, “If I don’t have worry, then what do I have?”

I think I’ve shared the story of my worry turning-point before on this blog. I worried and worried and worried Read More

My Pretentious Pride

.Reading time 6 minutes.

My 10-year college reunion will be next year, and a couple of classmates have already contacted me to see if I’m attending.

10 years! Oh, the nostalgia. Oh, the comparing-myself-to-everyone-my-age – and not just to the people I knew in college, but also to all the people I knew in high school and before.

Looming reunions are, I guess, appropriate times to look back at what I’ve accomplished and celebrate where life has taken the people from my past – a time to compare jobs and families and relationship statuses. But I seldom actually just say something like, “Oh, that’s nice” and move on; usually, I have to decide who has had the better life – me or them. Read More

My Best Solution

.Reading time 8 minutes.

Melissa and I packed up our apartment – taping boxes, sorting through junk, navigating piles that made our living room look like “Bed, Bath & Beyond” sneezed in it. Wedding decorations here, Goodwill there, Melissa’s stuff, Charity’s stuff…

Melissa was getting married and moving out in the same day; I (in probably the stupidest decision I’ve ever made) was also moving out the same weekend as the wedding.

Basically, I had three (very first-world) problems: Read More