I may have a flair for being a teeny little bit dramatic. “The End of the World” or “The Worst Day EVER”, are extremely likely to be heard from me, when the toothpaste runs out or another catastrophic event. I’m sure this does wonders for my worrying and stress issues.

So yesterday when the house we’re supposed to be moving into today wasn’t ready, I could see my own personal comet coming to Earth to end me. I had all these plans for cleaning, painting, and moving, what am I supposed to do now?? What if we don’t even get the house???

But today I am being very Zen. I will let it go. Let go of anxiety, let go of anger, just let it go. And today will be a good day.

I don’t know who genetically I got it from, but I’m a worrier. Like if I was born in the 1800’s I would have been that wife that had to go lay down in the middle of the afternoon with the windows drawn shut because she worried herself sick. They’d close the blinds in on me and tell me to just relax in the darkness so I wouldn’t get worked up. I’d lay there in the faux night with my eyes open thinking, “Is my heart pounding too fast?” or “I can feel my spine crushing my heart.”

I might have always been a little bit of a worrier, but never like this. Never the kind that keeps you awake at night or bother you all day at work. It’s why I compulsively list. If I write it down I’ll never forget and I can always look back on it and worry later.

List of things to ask my doctor:

My heart being irregularly/too fast

My scoliosis getting worse

J’s eye fungus

J’s skin cancer

J’s 30!

Then I end up with 10 lists full of things to do and worry about, so instead of even looking at them again, I just take a nap.

And fields in my heart. No ocean can compare to the way waves of corn fields calm me. I suddenly feel whole watching the sun break through clouds over hay bales and white farm houses. I can finally take deep breaths of clean air again. There is no serenity like that of home.

I love being able to look out the window and see something besides a wall of trees covered in kudzu. Here there are trees among gravel roads, lining property lines and lawns. Brown fields even look lovely to me. It is the scenic view of my childhood, of my adolescence, and the openness my adulthood craves.

“Please pray for peace and rain” a sign we drive by says. Peace and rain. That’s all my soul needs. Rain over a field, peace over my heart.

My grandmother has actually told me to marry the first time for money, the second time for love. Although coming from the woman who has been married to the same man for  60+ years… I take that advice with a grin. It became a joke anyway since J told me he was “loaded”, although he didn’t specify that he was actually loaded with bullets and not money.

But I’m pretty sure One Is For Luck. Because as my dad says only J can “step in dog shit and pull out gold.”

Only my husband would break a trailer on the drive to vacation (that part is the dog shit), and end up straight trading with the welder who fixed it for a bigger trailer. Only J could trade a broken tool for 4 truck tires, and have the other guy leave with a smile. He’s a-wheeler-and-a-dealer, and gives the saying “I married the luckiest man in the world” a whole new meaning.

Our vacation vehicle is a dusty truck.

This pick-up has been wiped down, vacuumed out, steam cleaned and power washed; and it still smells like the dust particle to air ratio is not in the favor of my breathing. Although lung cancer by pollen isn’t my favorite thought on this long drive, I find the smell oddly soothing. It’s the smell of trips to the farm alongside my dad. It reminds me of individual pizza boxes from the gas station and Dr. Pepper bottles rolling around the floor. It seems to me there should be an open licorice package on the dashboard. It reminds me of my brother slumped against my arm asleep, our bare arms sticking together because there was no air conditioning. If I got to sit by the window I’d stick my arm out and feel the air current move my hand up and down until it felt numb from the wind stream. But we normally fought about who got to sit in the middle. Who would get to sit beside our father? Who would get his right arm over the back of the seat to be a protective barrier behind their head? And when the sun got too low that the visor couldn’t block it from our eyes, would get to wear the sweaty green Pioneers hat.

It was an honor. One I wasn’t aware of until the fields got so dry there weren’t any crops to check on in the dusty pickup. But it is still such a pure memory. A gravel road, a pickup, and dirty green hat.

Vacation!

I don’t care if we go 6 miles down the road, I’m excited to be going anywhere! But it just so happens we’re going to the best place in the world, that is more like 20 hours down the road. Upcoming events: long stints of driving in a dusty truck, stiff legs (I learned this is called “stove up”), gas station food and more than likely a cheap hotel.

I look forward to the adventure!