free. from the what ifs.

I don’t know if you have bad dreams any longer.

Nightmares.

But I still do.

And a rotten one woke me up recently.

And the remnants of it clung to my skin all morning.

In the asleep version of my life

I had left our children at some childcare facility.

It was new to me.

I was new to town.

And when the time came to pick up the kids, I couldn’t find the building.

I couldn’t find our children.

It was just a dream but I woke up bogged down in the fear of it all.

As a parent,

are you ever overwhelmed

by the sheer magnitude

of the responsibility of being in charge of other people’s very lives?

I’m not even talking about the regular care and maintenance of those lives.

Yes, feeding and bathing and keeping clothed and educated

six humans

is ridiculously time-consuming

and intimidating.

But what I really mean

is the literal task

of seeing to it

that they survive.

That their car seats are buckled in properly.

Their hands are held as you wade through the death trap that is a parking lot.

Their jackets are warm enough.

The air they breathe is not contaminated.

The water they drink is not polluted.

The snacks they consume are not hydrogenated.

Seriously.

It makes my head spin.

Actually,

when I think like this,

when I look at the odds stacked against us,

the worst case scenarios,

the what-might-happens,

the fears that could be realized,

it shuts me down.

Renders me helpless.

When I focus on all the danger,

the nightmares,

the bad news,

I am suddenly incapable.

Unproductive

Unable to manage.

I lie down with fear

and I cannot get back up again.

And that’s just when I ponder the what ifs.

And I guess, for me, choosing not to drink deep of those thoughts,

choosing not to drown myself in my fears,

choosing not to allow my mind to recklessly wander down roads from where it can not return,

is

in essence

choosing to be

free.