At age 71, I have become skittish. Plus, an eerie premonition of doom that I’m going to get in a car accident surrounds me each time I back my car out of my driveway.
My hunch was a little off kilter, but I was right about the intuitive feeling that an accident would occur. It wasn’t me who hit another moving car without braking at fifty MPH. It was one of my younger sons – who totaled his car two weeks after leasing it – while driving an unfamiliar route to work. Fortunately, he walked away without a scratch, as did the driver of the car my son had hit. The other driver was cited, however, for failure to yield the right-of-way.
Miraculously – within just a few days – my confidence behind the wheel re-emerged and I was back to driving without a pit in my stomach each time I changed lanes, passed another car or turned left.
But I was still skittish – other anxieties replacing my short-lived driving phobia. Anxieties fueled by what I am reading in the newspapers, hearing on the radio, watching on television and absorbing at lectures and events I attend.
Headlines scream from newspapers:
-Government Shutdown Extends with Lawmakers Showing No Indicators of Softening Positions on Border Wall
-Man Trying to Run Down Jews Leaving Los Angeles Synagogue
-50 Years Ago, Earth Seen as a Gift. What Happened?
Who would have thought mass murders of children gunned down in classrooms would no longer be an anomaly? Who would have thought seventy years after the Holocaust Jews would be attending services under the protection of armed guards? That hate crimes would be rising at alarmingly high rates in the United States and around the world? That citizens attending marches would be mowed down by opposing forces in cars? That we still can’t count our citizens’ votes accurately?
Anxiety prevails – propelling my actions in a strange direction:
I begin to clean closets
Organize toiletries
Throw out expired meds, vitamins and canned goods
Stock up on non-perishables
Minimize clutter
Where is this rapidly burgeoning need for order stemming from?
A glimmer of insight surfaces. What do I do when I feel my internal and/or external world is out of control? I make order out of chaos. I de-clutter. I embrace Zen-like, clean, minimalist surroundings.
Of course, well organized, streamlined households didn’t protect the Jews of Europe from being brutally ripped from their homes and transported to death camps for mass executions. Nor do neat and tidy homes shield our school-age children from the chance of being gunned down by deranged, gun wielding psychos who attack our schools.
I don’t think the answers are found in the aisles of The Container Store. Or on the pages of Marie Kondo’s book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
Driven by a siege-like mentality, I find myself making sure our passports are easily accessible. I physically write down my kids’ cell, house and work phone numbers and their addresses – fearful of relying solely on my cell phone and its battery power.
We – as a family whose members live miles apart – discuss a central meeting place in case of calamity.
I horde stashes of cash.
I keep my prescriptions filled and my gas tank full.
I don’t know what the answer is, but my “heightened attention to detail” brings comfort.
I continue to read, listen and ponder.
I talk to people of influence for their guidance.
I donate to charities that touch my heart.
I continue to perform small acts kindness – giving cans of V8 Juice to the homeless camped-out at intersections.
I avoid the tendency to be diverted into petty political grievances that overshadow truly disturbing trends.
I write letters to my congressional representatives to implore them to act on issues that disturb me.
I pledge to do my part to ensure a saner, kinder, gentler country and world in 2019. I hope you do too – so that we may all be blessed with a United States of America that lives up to the ideals and principles it was founded upon.
Keep Preserving Your Bloom,
Iris