My closet of anxieties is wide open.* Occasionally, I have a reason in search of anxiety. For reasons I don�t understand, this weekend I am anxiety in search of a reason. This revelation hit me about the same time the box of my upcoming London trip fell out of the closet onto my head.

I am very excited about going to London in September. Really I am. When I got my passport, I told everyone I thought would listen that I was now a woman with a passport. It sounded exotic. It sounded wonderful. I�ve always wanted to travel out of the country and was beginning to think that I might never have the opportunity. My parents� offer to come and take care of the girls has made it possible and I am thrilled. I think it may be one of the best presents they�ve given me.

And yet I�m anxious. Worse, I�m anxious about stupid things. The theme running through my head this morning as I was exercising was �what will I do about handling money?� If I had never, ever been any place that required me to exchange money I might think this anxiety was real. But I�ve been to Canada a lot. At one point when I was teaching in the Detroit area, I went back and forth across the border as though it did not exist. I used Canadian money on one side and American money on the other side of the Detroit River (usually on the correct sides). I exchanged money with no problem so it can�t really be about the money.

After I convinced myself that it was not about the money, I thought I�d be more peaceful. Fat chance. As I came up the stairs for water, I found myself worrying, �How will my parents deal with the schools if they have to when I�m gone?� If I had never left my children before, this worry might be understandable but I�ve gone away for short times before (although not so far.) I know that notes to the schools that I am leaving my parents in charge and that I authorize them to pick the girls up, etc., will solve this problem. I firmly told myself the schools were not a problem.

I then suddenly realized that I was full of angst but not about the items that might be a problem. Nowhere in my anxiety attack did I ever wonder how on earth I�m going to sit on a plane long enough to get to London without Mr. Philately ending up hating me. I should have. I am not a person who sits much. When I travel, I fidget. If someone put a curse on Mr. Philately and told him that he would have to travel on a plane for the rest of his life and never arrive anywhere but that he could bring one person with him to ease the trip, I assure you that he would not pick me. (To be fair, I wouldn�t pick me either.) Traveling with Kat is much more appealing. No, I figured, he should worry about this one.

Of course, having figured out that it was not about London, I firmly pushed that box on the shelf. Unfortunately, I�m very short. As I stood on my tiptoes on a stool, huffing and puffing to put the box of London anxieties back in place, the Kat�s-Starting-High-School box and the I-Still-Haven�t-Found-a -Kickoff-for-Girl-Scouts box came tumbling down, one on my head and the other on my feet.

It�s going to be a loooooong day.

*Years ago, there was a comic strip called Bloom County. One of the characters in the strip had a closet of anxieties that would come open and strange things would come out. I love this image.

(I wrote this entry yesterday. The anxiety lasted until it became obvious that I had a real in-law problem. Real problems seem to chase my anxieties away every time. )

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