What if?

Been up for hours. Wandering the house. Wandered out for a pack of smokes. I need to quit. Still feeling the restlessness. Wish I could keep more of it focused on the work, concentrate on the writing. My mind is cluttered. Too many thoughts bumping around in there at once, and at last they are not the thoughts of others, the suggestions from others, the doubts of other people creeping in and taking over. Just my own doubts. I try to pay them no mind, stopping the thought before it gets too far. You don’t have to follow it, a counselor once told me as I stared at the shabby gold curtains in her office. It’s not advice to which I’ve always adhered, but it works. Almost all of the time.

Still, the thoughts – the what if thoughts – don’t just go away. They still show up, knock around in my head a little while, trying to get my attention. Those days, like this morning, it is all I can do to shake those thoughts loose, focus on the positive ones, follow the trail that will lead me far away from the doubt.

I read recently that the difference between people with high anxiety and stress levels and people without them is the question of if. People with normal stress levels go about their lives telling themselves, if I do this, then that will happen. And most of the time they are right, so they keep going about their lives. People with higher stress and anxiety are more likely to ask themselves one question. What if? What might happen if I do this? Sometimes, the question and the infinite possibilities become too much, overwhelming a person into a point of immobility.

The counselor with the gold curtains once told me to let go of that question. I understood what she meant. I knew I couldn’t continue obsessing, fearing the worst possible outcome at any given moment. But I know now that I can’t ever let it go completely, not without sacrificing who I am at my core. Without the what if – I wouldn’t be much of a writer. The more they try to counsel and medicate into no longer asking the questions, the less I’m able to write. Writing is itself therapy. On the page, it is safe to work out the what ifs, let them out, let them move through me without making me paranoid. On the page, they cannot hurt me. When I am writing, I forget all the other questions. I eventually forget to even ask them.