Take, for example, last week when I remembered in the nick of time that I was summoned for jury duty on a day that I regularly watch my friend's baby. Of course, when I called in, my number was called and I was gonna have to report in, which meant that my husband had to rearrange his schedule to stay home with the kids. Not a total end-of-the-world thing, but enough to throw me into a mood that immediately spiraled into the "I hate it that we have no family in town... how are we ever gonna be in a place to have more kids?" blues. Now, when our daughter was first born, we somehow had enough in us to make our crazy schedules work, but two years of sleep deprivation later, it doesn't take much to knock the wind right out of my sail. And when this happens, my husband now knows that these few little words do wonders to calm the waves... "it usually works out." I ask him to remind me of this from time to time when I feel the walls caving in and the pressure mounting up.
The truth is, for a lot of situations, things usually do work out... within the scope of what you already know to be true for your life and existence. In other words... the smallish things in life that surmount into a big pile of worry... these are the things that usually work out. The other things- the big things- like, for instance, family, health, friendships, and world need (to name a few), are worth the extra worry and attention.
Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself that I might run late (a LOT) and I might forget about planning for things like jury duty, but I have NEVER forgotten my daughter at home while on the way to run errands. She's the best part of the errand-running. And though I might not smell or look as good as the mom down the street, my daughter doesn't care because she knows she has an open invitation to put makeup on me and dress me up like a freak. And these are the little things I live for.
PS- the jury duty situation did work out, as predicted. My husband rearranged his schedule to take the day off, all to wake up that morning with the stomach flu, which meant that the jury duty people had to let me off the hook. I mistakenly gave my husband 2 Tylenol PM's (when he asked for regular Tylenol), and he slept the day away. Woke up feeling much better, and neither me nor our daughter caught whatever nasty thing he had. It all worked out in its own funny little way.
