It's a gray and gloomy day in West Chester today.  This kind of reminds me of when I was a kid and my best friend and I decided to try to write a story and of course, it started out with, "It was a dark and stormy night"!  If weather reports can be believed, we are heading for some bad weather this weekend.  Plans are shifting left and right due to the weather forecast.  Mind you, I never listen to the weather.  Never.  So far, due to the forecast, our neighborhood block party for tomorrow evening has been canceled and an appointment to show houses on Saturday morning has been postponed by the buyer.  There is supposed to be a lunch and football game after church on Sunday, one my 13 year old is looking forward to.  Our Pastor says we will play in the rain and my son is thrilled by this.  I will not be playing football, but if it does rain, it looks like I'll be doing mud stained laundry later in the day!  I'm not sure if cooler heads will prevail, but I'm kind of hoping not because it will be fun for all involved.

Why do we spend so much time worrying about things that may not come to be?  I can't tell you how many times I've spent a sleepless night worrying over something that didn't happen.  I spent most of my childhood trying to quell the fear that I would lose my mom.  I could work myself up to actually crying at the thought of it.  When I had children, I would do the same thing.  Lay in bed, while the world was asleep and worry about all of the things that could befall them.  I talked to a friend about it once, assuming that everyone does this.  Apparently not.  The expression "Let Go and Let God" is a lovely one.  I have a hard time letting go of the things I worry about.  Somehow, in my mind, I am holding the world together by worrying about it.

But I do learn things from time to time and one of things I've learned is that most of what I've worried about over the years hasn't happened.  I just lost precious time and peace of mind worrying over them.  I still have the worrying thoughts, but I am getting better at letting them go.  I can't stop bad things from happening, so I tell myself to think of something else. 

I can across some great quotes about worrying.  This is attributed to Nancy Drew, one of my favorite heroines from childhood:

"If worry were an effective weight-loss program, women would be invisible."

This is an unknown author and is so true:

"Worry doesn't help tomorrow's troubles, but it does ruin today's happiness."

This one hits home too:

"We worry about what a child will be tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today."

When I think about all of the worrying I did over my quiet and shy older son.  If you saw him now, surrounded by friends in college, tall, handsome, you'd wonder what the heck I was worrying about.  He's more than fine and he makes me very proud. I've worried myself sick over my younger son's vision.  I can't predict the future so I have to trust that this child, so full of life and potential, will be just fine.

So today, 10/15/09, as I head out to start a busy day, including delivering meals on wheels, I am thankful that so many of the scary things I worried over, did not happen.  I am grateful to realize I have a choice about what I think about.  I am thankful for my family, my friends, my home, my dog and cat (of course) and the new friendships being made every day. 

Carpe Diem!