Aaaaaaaaaah, the future. Man, the future can be so full of hope and completely terrifying at the same time, can’t it? I picture the future as a beautiful woman, she is amazingly beautiful and you can see all that you want in her eyes, but she has a side that is unknown and completely terrifying to a man. I have been sitting here thinking about my life and I am completely baffled. I am a bit of a control freak, I rarely lose control of anything in my life and I have come an infinite amount of miles from where my temper used to be, but the fact that I don’t know what’s going to happen drives me crazy. I don’t like not knowing what is coming, I like to see what’s up ahead so I can plan for it and be ready to defend against it if need be.
The not knowing often leads to me laying in bed at night worrying about countless things. I think up crazy situations based on my worries and try to form plans to prevent or reduce anything bad that can happen. I know it sounds crazy, but that is what helps me get through. My plans may be absurd to you, but just the simple fact that I have a plan, a starting point, to some made up situation helps to ease my mind and allows me to get some sleep. I lay there in the dark, listening to all of the little noises. Linus and Roxy snoring, L Bird’s deep breathing and A Bird turning over in her bed over the monitor and the whole time my mind is racing. I know everybody worries and its natural and I’m sure that a lot of people share the same worries.
I worry about when A Bird goes to school, is she going to be scared on the bus? Will she fit in? Will she make friends? Will we find a good day care in our school district that is as good or better than the one she goes to now? Then day care tosses me into a tizzy. I make plans to talk to people I know and call this office or that office and start checking out daycares now, even though A Bird is two years away from school.
Then I worry about work, I think about all of the changes that have happened in the last 3 years of my career, I got a new winemaking position and was being groomed for a promotion within winemaking, then the company changed its plans and I wasn’t finished in my training so the position I was being groomed for needed to be filled immediately and it went to a co-worker which turned out to be its own debacle. Then they consolidate my winery and I moved back to my original facility but with no clear development path. Now I have been told off the record that there is room to climb in my department, but I’m not so sure because I learned a valuable lesson from the grooming/promotion thing, nothing is certain. So I worry about where am I going in the company? Am I doing enough to get where I want to go? Am I being recognized for my efforts or is it all politics? What happens if I get stepped over again or I lose my job? How am I going to take care of my family? What would I do? I’m pretty specialized in my career and training and I would be hard pressed to find something else that would be comparable in benefits and pay. My mind whirls and I think about how I present myself and what courses I can take to show my willingness to succeed and do a quality job. I make plans to talk to my boss, and I develop my own 3 and 5 year plans, and how I’m going to get there.
Those are just the two that jumped into my head, there are hundreds of others that I worry about. Little things like, how am I going to come up with money to do the necessary projects that need to be done around the house? If I put off fixing that small leak in the roof until spring, is the roof going to fall in? (I know that it won’t, but that’s where my mind goes), and big things like are we ever going to be able to have another child? We had a hard time with A Bird, is it all my fault? Is there something I’m not doing that I could be doing that I don’t know about? Am I being punished for my past sins? Why is that every scumbag out there that doesn’t deserve kids has a pack of them while willing and decent people can’t have one? Why is it so difficult and expensive to try? These are the things that I have no idea how to plan for and produce many restless nights of me tossing and turning.
But eventually I fall asleep and peace comes to me during the night. I wake up, go to the shower and my mind replays my “plans” as the hot water pours over my head. I lean forward and let my forehead rest against the cold wall, I close my eyes and I say the same prayer. I thank God for the gifts that I do have in my life, L Bird, A Bird, a job, and all of the little things, then I ask for strength to make my plans work if I need them and for patience and peace. I open my eyes, turn off the water and face the future.
I know things have a way of eventually working themselves out and I know I have a plan or starting place for just about anything this world throws at me. My future is bright, scary as shit, but bright and I’ll face it head on, leave my mark and be better for it.
The future is both a beautiful and a terrifying mistress, just great, isn’t it?
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