Image Title Attribution: Wikimedia Commons “Don’t Worry” by Vincerama is licensed under CC BY 3.0 DEED

I don’t know how to be happy as a sustained state of being. I can be happy for moments and I have been trying to find joy in little things, but I struggle to be overall content with where I am in life. My peace of mind is like a person trying to balance on a log that is rolling in the water. If I stay busy, if I keep moving, I can sustain mental tranquility for short periods, but then always, I eventually fall into the water.

My husband, on the other hand, has for years had a nickname of “chirpy bird” which explains the difference between our views on life. Our inner mental thoughts might as well be from different planets. I dwell on what can go wrong and then conduct exhaustive inner planning, attempting to figure out ways to avoid the possible harm that could come to my family. My husband just doesn’t do this. He thinks that “life will eventually work itself out and then we die and go to heaven so what is the point of worrying?” I feel like yelling at him, “How can you not worry that XYZ bad thing could happen?” But…he doesn’t, and I don’t know how to turn off my anxiety ridden brain and be like that.

When I try to express what is running through my brain, my husband either tries to fix me or gets frustrated. I’m sure he would like to yell, “Why can’t you just be happy?”

My daughter’s prison sentencing that is coming up is an inner nightmare that has come to life; it is a deep, dark seventeen year fear that is about to become reality. I couldn’t turn my daughter away from the direction she took. If I can’t stop bad things from happening to my family, what good am I as a person or a mother? If this bad thing happens, then what else in my life is going to happen? Is my youngest son who has crippling anxiety going to harm himself…or worse? Am I going to get a phone call one day that my oldest son, who is a police officer, has been shot in the line of duty…or worse? Is my trans daughter going to get mugged one day by mean people like the high school teen that was attacked in a bathroom and beaten to death? The reality of the prison sentencing has sent my brain spinning off into dark “what ifs”. I can’t trust that life going forward is going to be good. I can’t come to terms with the dread that something else will happen.

I know the bible verse that says,

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippeans 4:6-7 New King James

I can quote that verse from memory; I’m just not very good at living it.