i think i have to finally admit that i'm a nervous person. you all probably knew that already, but i've been deluding myself that i'm not. i don't know why i'm so afraid to say it: "i'm nervous." not about everything, by any means, but i worry. you know? mainly i worry about things over which i have no control: whether my sex drive will shrivel to nothing when i hit menopause, whether my partner will still find me attractive when i'm 60 (or, if i'm partner-less, if i'll be able to attract a new partner), whether my appendix tumor will spread, whether i'll be able to get a decent job when i finish my dissertation, whether i'll ever be able to travel like i want to, whether my future colleagues will like me, whether my future students will like me, whether i'll lose my memory when i'm old and be unable to function anymore, whether i'll be able to keep running into old age, etc.
to a certain extent, worry is good. it motivates me, keeps me moving on projects, keeps me from slipping into ennui. there is a point, however, beyond which worry becomes a liability, and instead of motivating me it actually makes me overlook the good things i have in my life right now that i should be relishing. i am in pretty good health, i have a wonderful partner, wonderful friends, i can still run, i am close to finishing a degree that really means something to me, i live in a beautiful city with lots going on and lots of interesting people... when worry intrudes on these things, shifts my focus from how lucky i am to the inevitability of loss and setbacks, i become short-tempered and guarded, i sweat the small stuff too much, spin my wheels, criticize more than i praise, and thereby run the risk of alienating the people i really care about, and who really care about me. that's what they call a self-fulfilling prophecy.
it's what my friend L calls "borrowing trouble from the future." the more i think about that phrase, the more i see in it, and the more it seems to see in me. it's starting to grow a body...a fetish doll perched on my shoulder, right above where the worry knot forms hard and stubborn in the muscle beside my left shoulder blade. the doll has a lop-sided grin and a knowing look, hair made of cotton string, bare feet, and a dress made of shimmering green silk. she has freckles. she doesn't use wrinkle cream and she's not afraid to smile with her whole face. her hands are busy knitting socks for other people, people who like socks, people who wear socks, which doesn't include herself because she prefers her feet bare. she knits with yarn of every imaginable color, and at the cuff of each sock she sews a small good luck trinket, a ward against worry and loss, the worry of loss. she wears a string of such trinkets around her neck--monopoly tokens and pot metal avatars of tigers and parrots and rabbits and coyotes and the buddha and sojourner truth and karl marx and joan of arc and billy the kid and malcolm X and dandelions and dildoes and the letters of the alphabet and fuzzy dice and coffee mugs and clowns--jewelry that's made to be taken apart and given away piecemeal, yet somehow she never runs out.
and every now and then, when she thinks i'm getting too serious or too big for my britches or too stuck in a rut, she reaches out and steals my nose like my dad used to do when i was little. then she sews it to a sock and gives it away to someone i don't even know. (heh. which would you prefer: a sock in your nose or a nose on your sock? follow your nose. sock it to me. stuff a sock in it.)
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