Thursday afternoon, as I was driving through the placid landscape of Western Kentucky heading for Cadiz - presumably to attend part of my school reunion with Ham Festival as a fall back plan - I was overwhelmed by anxiety. I mean, really wanted to cry anxiety. All I could think of was that I was going to a party with people from high school and what if they didn't like me - still, after all these years. That's not to say that I was unpopular, but rather to say that I was non-existance - in my mind anyway.
In the midst of my anxiety I called my friend Terri. I would have called Jose - but any man who responds to the news that your father has had a stroke with "well at least he didn't die." Isn't a person who is really great at comforting the anxious soul (but we're working on it).
It was so strange to feel such anxiety and insecurity wash over me again. I hadn't felt such since I was in my twenties - when i finally learned to let go of any perception of myself but my own. and to know that all this stuff had laid hidden down in the deepest recesses of my mind. Who was going to be there, what would I say, why was I going? over and over again the mantra repeated itself in my head - i don't want to go, I have to go, i don't want to go, i have to go. such drama - i swear. But in the car, I was no longer professional, capable, married mother of 2 - I was Amy Walker - you know Jason's sister, Jodi's sister, Wayn'e daughter. Amy Walker, smart girl - wierd girl - I think she's the one who's in all the plays at school. Amy Walker girl that I thought I had dealt with, conquered and retrained - but she was still there - and she for sure didn't have it all together by any stretch of the imagination. And me say, that I wasn't too happy to have her resurface.
Let me simply say that I am more than happy that I am no longer that young and dealing with that crap - because life it too short, time too precious to worry about - well much of anything - what is ... is. And what you can't change or fix, then let it go -
