healthmedicinet

Every spring, I fill my birdfeeder to the brim with seeds. We get cardinals and chickadees and titmice.

They’re messy buggers, though, and they fling (most of) the seed down from the feeder into the potted flower plants on my apartment deck. Left alone, those seeds grow – into delicate-looking grassy tufts with a complex root system so badass and tough that it’s a struggle to yank them out.

THE WEIGHT OF THE 30-YEAR MORTGAGE

My husband and I were driving home to our apartment from his parents’ house today. We were mindlessly looking at the houses that flanked the curvy country road.

“You know,” my husband said, “whatever house we end up buying…I mean, we might only be there for five years or so. If there’s no work left in my industry, we’d have no choice but to move out of the area.”

Cue the minor breakdown.

It went something like this:

1. Five years? Wait. A mortgage is for 30 years. I want to live in a house for at least 30 years!
2. I want to live in a house that I can truly turn into a home. If I feel like I’m just “passing through”, then I won’t feel comfortable.
3. Why would I ever want to put TLC into a house that we might only be living in for five years?
4. Oh my god. Selling a house? Holy hell. I can’t imagine the stress of trying to sell a house.
5. I can’t believe we have to sell our house. The house we don’t yet own.
6. This is all just too stressful; I can’t do it.
7. I can’t do any of it.
8. I can’t handle anything.
9. I’m starting to cry. Shit. My husband deserves a wife who doesn’t cry over bullshit.
10. My husband hasn’t seen any of my internal dialogue and now thinks I’m simply crying over the very last thing he said.
11. But in reality, ow, I’m not only crying about the stress and tension of house hunting, but also the idea of buying a home that won’t be permanently ours.
12. And I’m crying because I want to nest. I want to nest!
13. And now I’m crying because my husband sees me crying.
14. And now I’m crying because I’m worried that my husband will lose his job in five years.
15. And now I’m crying because I’m trying to figure out what the hell we’ll do in five years with a house that’s still got a 25-year mortgage and – well, frankly, I’d like kids by then, so – we’ll have to move our kids! We’ll have to uproot their tiny little lives!
16. And now I’m crying for the children that I haven’t yet conceived.
17. And now I’m crying because I’m upset at myself for all the crying.

Elapsed time: twenty seconds from one anxiety-producing thought to a cascade of meta-tears (or, crying about crying) that took me deep underground.

IN THIS LIFE LIKE WEEDS

The first thought (“Five years?”) was the weed – the part of the plant growing above the ground.

Just like clutter attracts clutter, so too does anxiety attract more anxiety. And that “more anxiety” is hidden below the surface. It’s latent. It’s obscured. It’s waiting in the moist and fertile darkness below the initial anxiety-provoking thought.

Let’s return to the list above: every thought that follows the first one is part of the root system.

Even the smallest worries are connected to a thriving root system of beneath-the-surface anxiety.

And the only way to kill a plant is to yank the entire thing – root system included – right out of the ground.

But…how?

Photo by elmyra

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And they are apparently too stupid to realize how easy it is to ensure they are called out for their bad behavior.

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    Last reviewed: 30 Mar 2013