Worry

What would it take to live without worry? How far would you have to go, how long would you have to run to escape its clutches? Would you have to live as a hermit, with no relationships at all? Perhaps you would. Worry is the price of love. When you open your heart to someone or something, you become vulnerable. They say with great happiness comes great sorrow. Life is a balance. So to invite love is to invite worry. Worry that weighs like a ton on either side of your face, making it impossible to smile. Worry that holds you in its visceral grip so that even to breathe is painful. Worry that tracks you down and traps you in a corner, no escape, no hope, no anything. I worry a lot. Do I love a lot? That depends on who you ask, but it is essentially irrelevant. When our dog Bonnie died last May, I realized how precious life is. When my mother called me one day after that and told me she had bad news, my first questions were a panicked, "Is Scappy ok? Is Leo ok? Is Buddy ok?" Ever since Bonnie died, I have been so afraid of losing what remains. Every cough, every sniffle, and I immediately fear the worst. When Scrappy stopped eating Christmas day, worry consumed me so much that I couldn't think. I couldn't fathom a life without her. Two months later, and my tears flow as freely as rain. That's the price I pay and shall pay for loving her so deeply. And now Leo, our cat, is sick. He's been sick, for months, but now it's serious. Months ago, he suddenly started drinking twice the amount of water as usual, urinating twice as much, desperate for food twice as much, and yet he seemed to be losing weight, so much so that I could count the individual spines of his vertebrae, and feel the exact articulation of the scapula and the humerus. He's still heavy, but he's lost muscle mass. Last week two of his canine teeth fell out. Just fell out. And now he has a tumor or a growth of some sort under his skin, just after his ribcage on his right side. The lump is about two inches in diameter. He's less active, and his appetite has increased dramatically. All the research I have done to figure out this malady has given me no hope, only worry and grief. I love Leo. I'm worried about Leo. This worry grips my intestines in an iron hold, making me feel physically sick all the time, making me feel alone, afraid, and depressed. I don't want to lose Leo. And I don't want to worry anymore.