I had my first MRI last week and I walked away from that experience feeling overwhelmed with new things on my mind.

 First things first: if you have to get an IV, drink a ton of water a few days before. Maybe you're working on a big project with an approaching deadline and forgot or were even too hopeful that they wouldn't be giving you contrast dye for your MRI, so you accidentally spent the day before drinking coffee and Dr. Pepper and can't remember the last time you had a sip of water. If that's the case, they're going to have trouble finding a vein and you're going to walk out of there with so many little bandages on your arms that it looks like you got in a fight.

So far in my BRCA journey, the procedures have scared me more than the results. Maybe it's because I'm only 27 and still relatively healthy, or maybe it's because I have a bit of a needle phobia, but when I was getting the gene test all I could think about was getting blood drawn. And then I freaked out about how uncomfortable a mammogram was going to be (PSA: they aren't--don't be scared, go get your mammogram). And even when the radiologist told me he wanted to do a biopsy on something that looked a little suspicious, at the time I was more afraid of the numbing injection/biopsy itself than the possibility that I had breast cancer. All of this is to say that I freak myself out about things and they are never as bad as I imagine.

This MRI, though, was the one thing I wasn't afraid of, and it just so happened that I had a pretty terrible experience. And yet, it was over in an hour and I didn't waste any time before then worrying about it. That has really stuck with me these past few days (along with the bruises I have from the four tries it took them to get an IV in me).

“Don’t worry about the future
Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind
The kind that blindsides you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday”

— Baz Luhrmann, Everybody's Free (to Wear Sunscreen)

I can make myself sick worrying about something that will never actually be as bad as I make it out to be. Or I can take things in smaller doses and worry about the things worth worrying about only when they are actually presented to me. 

Easier said than done, as usual; but always worth remembering.

Last night I found myself feeling uninspired so I did what I always do and flipped my copy of Old Friend from Far Away open to a random page and read what was there. This quote was staring me in the face and I was writing it down before I even had a chance to realize that I have already quoted it once right here.

“Don’t be hard on yourself...Allow the luxury of time, dreaming out the window, a little noodle walk through a dime store, then like a female lion after her prey, go directly into the animal art of pen across paper...

I know more but I don’t push it because there are things I don’t know that I want to come to me. I’m calling up understanding beyond myself. If I get too determined, too linear, I’ll miss the tugs of intuition at the periphery of my perceptions, the things I don’t want to say, the things I have never said...”

— Natalie Goldberg, "Old Friend from Far Away"

Maybe it's time for me to find some new books.

Either way, I feel this way every year and can't seem to escape it--September is here and there are pumpkin beers on draft everywhere but it's still too hot. Students are back in school and I am another year away from it all with dishes in the sink and essays I wish I had written months ago.

So I wait.

--

Currently I'm reading a collection of letters between Julia Child and Avis DeVoto and I'm simultaneously charmed and discouraged by their passion for food and politics and friendship and life and everything in between. Sometimes I wonder, did Julia ever have days or even weeks where she just didn't write a thing? Where she went to bed early and felt uninspired and grateful for takeout or leftovers?

I like to think that she sometimes woke up with a stuffy nose and a headache and decided to take a nap in the afternoon instead of folding laundry or working on her next project, which is exactly what I did yesterday.

"I'm enjoying it immensely, as I've finally found a real and satisfying profession which will keep me busy well into the year 2,000. But I wish I had started in when I was 14 yrs. old,." she wrote about the cooking classes she started teaching with two other women in France.

I feel that about my own life sometimes. But other times it is clouded by self-doubt and worry.

I think we'd all be a little more successful (and happy) if we could only get out of our own way.

When I was younger, my life motto was "let go and let God." It allowed me to give up worry while still letting me feel like I was in control. The whole point was to just be faithful that things would always work out the way they were supposed to, which for a young girl with a lot of faith and no real problems was actually quite easy.

Although my life has been a rather gentle ride so far, as I get older I cross paths with plenty of things to cause me worry. The deaths of family and friends. Illness. Anxiety. Changes in my family dynamic. And over the years it has become harder and harder for me to let go.

Last winter I wrote about the weirdness of being in a liminal space of non-transition after a whole life of changes. I have always been able to focus on the next thing, and I didn't realize it at the time but it was extremely therapeutic. Little stresses add up over time but focusing on the bigger picture always provides some much-needed perspective. And yet it's always easier to look back once the wedding is planned and the boxes are packed and you're finally feeling settled. So this year has been one of worry. 

But something changed for me a few months back--the realization that I couldn't worry anymore. I was making myself sick and nothing was changing. So I started taking things one day at a time. I let go. And while I'm no longer much of a religious person, I find myself more and more often praying for things to work out not the way I want them to, but the way they're supposed to. It's easier said than done, of course, but like meditation or yoga, it's a practice that I have applied thoughtfully to my life. Things will change one day. But probably not today. So take a deep breath and banish your misgivings for as long as you can.

Stand up in the presence of whatever's in front of you. Feel it. Let it wash over you if you must. And then just let it go.