The What-If's sneak in

I think it’s easy to sound confident and self-assured about our decision to go on the road when there are people all around cheering us on. It’s later, when it’s quiet and still that the “what-if’s” come creep, creep, creeping in on their silent little cat feet.
Tonight the “What-if’s” arrived just as I was tucking Aiden into bed. I was kissing his head, and patting his back just as they arrived, peeking around the corner of the door frame to insert their nasty little ideas, un-willed, into my head. “What-if” something horrible happens to our family while we are on the road. Then it will all be my fault for coming up with this crazy idea.
The What-if’s and I are not strangers, not by a long shot. In fact they are the friends from college that show up and ruin everything just when you think you have it together. (You know, the ones that stumble up the driveway, trashed on Pabst Blue Ribbon or Boon’s Farm and reveal all the stupid stuff you did way back when, thereby revealing you are not the polished adult who has it all together- those friends). Yes, the what-if’s and I go wayyyyy back.
Now, to some degree, I come by it honestly. My maternal grandmother has turned a lifetime of worry into a, well into a piece of art really. Some of her more fantastic gems include not swimming in cold water because you won’t be able to have children. Cats in a house with a baby will suck out it’s breath. And, by far the best would be that girls shouldn’t learn to ride a bike because it would give them big ankles and who will marry a girl with big ankles??? How did she have time to do anything else? I mean between the worrying about cats, cold water and big ankles... there are just not enough hours in the day! Sadly, that is the Grandma whose genes I received. The one with the Lutian chin, the ability to gain weight by merely smelling bread, and an obsessive compulsive addiction to worrying. (Totally unfair! Why couldn’t I have gotten the genes from the tall, curvy grandma who never gained an ounce, had razor sharp wit and FANTASTIC nails? The one who didn’t worry a day in her life because she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that lemons, white wine and a pack of smokes could cure anything?)
Anyway, back to the what-if’s. Wasn’t that part of the original reason for this fantastic plan? To free my kids from the horrible what-if’s? To show them, and myself too that being mentally and emotionally flexible is a blessing? To jump into life with both feet, wade around in it and emerge soaking wet and triumphant? I don’t want the boys to be in their mid-thirties before they realize the effects of living life in a mindset of fear. I spent years making decisions because of fear, either fear of consequences, or fear of the possibilities, fear of the loss, fear of the unknown, fear of what others would say/think/do... All of it planted by those stinky little, cat-footed “What-if’s”
Yep, bad things can happen at any time, and lots of times they do. But so do good things, so we will press on and see what good things lie ahead. Despite the occasional appearance of the “what-if’s”.