The Encyclopedia of Me: A is for anxious
I’ve never participated in a meme before, but I kinda like the one I just found in a very serendipitous way on a blog named Bella Dia. (This is a blog I have to tell Michele about, if she doesn’t know about it already. Michele is a blog-reading fiend when it comes to blogs like Bella Dia that feature craft-related content.)
This meme is called “The Encyclopedia of Me” and the idea behind it is to create twenty six posts, one for each letter of the alphabet. Each letter will represent a topic that explains a bit about who I am, my interests, my life. Bella Dia suggests that this be done over the course of the month of August; I’m not sure I want to follow that timeframe. Instead, I think I’ll add new posts at random intervals over the next few months.
I know, I know: This kind of thing is exactly what blog critics think blogs are all about: a bunch of people just blabbing about themselves and who cares? If you don’t care, don’t read it. No skin off my nose.
Most of my life I’ve been anxious about one thing or another. One of my favorite Bible verses is Philippians 4:6 which says:
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
Why am I anxious? I suppose at the core of it, I lack faith in God. Anxiety is a form of unbelief. I realize this. If I truly believed that He has the whole world in His hands, I’d realize that there is nothing to worry about. If I only tried harder when faced with another crisis or problem, to remember all of those past times when He has brought me through completely and safely, I wouldn’t struggle so much with anxiety.
There are other reasons for this tendency. There were a lot of anxious times in our family when I was growing up. Sometimes we had a lot of money, but most of the time we didn’t. There were many times when we couldn’t be sure that we’d continue to have a place to live due to financial troubles. Anxiety was generated by my father’s long addiction to alcohol and all of the issues and events surrounding that. There were many arguments in our household that I still remember quite vividly. Lots of loud shouting, crying, verbal warfare with words as weapons. There were physical conflicts as well, but not as much. I still remember my two oldest brothers fighting on the front lawn of our house, rolling around on the ground, throwing punches and so forth, and being absolutely convinced that they were going to kill each other. My brother Dan and I shared a room most of our growing up years and we almost always got along, but we did occasionally have fights, too. One time, for some really silly reason that I can’t remember, we began a fight. I remember Dan coming after me to punch me in the face. He swung really hard with his right fist and I ducked just in time, with the result that his fist hit the edge of our dresser, breaking his hand. Ironically we learned that the break was called a boxer’s break after he was taken to the emergency room and had it looked at. Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that the reason he was coming after me to punch me was that I had just thrown a D cell battery as hard as I could at him, hitting him in the chest. He was so angry and full of adrenaline that he didn’t even feel it.
I am anxious also because I’ve failed a lot of times. Fear of failure can be a strong force keeping you from doing new things, trying to go in new directions.
And part of the anxiety I’ve known all my life is no doubt related to some of the larger events that played out in the church group to which I belonged. I’ve mentioned before that 1970 was a watershed year in which many events occurred that shaped how and where I was raised, the people and family I knew or didn’t know, etc. There were other splits among the brethren after that. Looking back, it seems to me that there was often the need to identify which side we were on, and this caused some memorable conflicts, hard feelings, and yes, anxiety.
Hopefully the next post in this meme, for the letter B, will be much more positive!
