Anxiety and a Few of My Favorite Things

There is no solution for anxiety that works all the time. But the question that helps so much of the time is one a friend asked as I was getting ready to face an intimidating surgery.

"What makes you smile no matter what?" she asked.

My initial response was, "Chris."

"Okay," she said. "Think about him and remember something good about him until you smile."

It's something I know to do, but needed reminding. And after that, my mind kept going so I made myself a list.

There is an unbelievable depth to the pure delight in honest simplicity. As our problems get bigger and more complicated, and so do the solutions. But when my mind is clouded with anxiety or worry, the answers can't be complex. Simplicity combats the rat's nest of tangled thoughts in my mind. Each simple thing is built upon meaning. The meaning runs down deep. But the purity of it is the delight that follows.

Since I was a little girl, I have collected them in my silver rocking horse bank and save them until there's something I really want to buy.

I had one and I enjoyed 200,000 miles in it before it was totaled in a wreck. A smaller car wouldn't have been enough to protect Chris and I from injury/death. A larger car wouldn't have maneuvered as well.

They are special. They just are.

I'm really rough on shoes, but I've had these for two years, and they're the only pair of shoes I wear. They are really comfortable and worth every dollar they cost.

I can remember the first time I had one in my house. I was 7. I was in complete awe. That never went away.

They're shiny and pretty and catching them when they fly through the air is basically reaching into the sky and pulling down a present.

The one who started the whole list. The boy who promised he would always love me and the man who keeps that promise.