Bricks

I feel anxious lately. It seems like I have a lot of worries that just don't ever leave me - and often hit me in idle moments like a sack of bricks in the gut. They feel like tasks I've been avoiding. Some of the things on the list:

- The rabbits that live in a hutch behind the cathedral. They're domestic short-hairs and shouldn't be kept outside - they have a wooden hutch but it's only thin plywood, and they don't have any hay or other nesting material to burrow into, just cedar chips which are toxic to rabbits. Plus, they're being kept on wire which is hard on their feet, and will eventually cripple them. I feel like I need to do something for their welfare, because if I don't, who will? But I'm afraid to make confrontational phone calls. The one time I did so far, the cathedral ground-staff guy just told me that they were "fine" and not to worry, and then he hung up. I'm not sure if I should call the humane society next, or what. Every night that dips below freezing, I feel guilty about them being out there in the cold, because I'm not doing anything to help them.

- My friend who teaches me Spanish during his evening rounds at the office. The other night I asked him if he was married, and he said sadly that he was not. I asked if he would like to be, and he said, "Yes, yes, very much. I always wanted. But maybe will not happen." He's so nice, and his whole family is in El Salvador, and he hardly knows anyone here. The other cleaning staff don't even seem to talk to him much. The thought of him going home and spending Christmas alone is very sad. I feel like I can't even talk with him about things I'm looking forward to, like Christmas and getting married, because it will make him feel bad.

- My father. I worry about him being lonely and sad, too. He's got my mom, but he's essentially alone otherwise. I know he feels depressed. I feel like I should be there for him more, and working more to build bridges between him and the rest of the world, but I'm not doing it.

- Having a baby. Sometimes I imagine I'm pregnant, in the home stretch coming down to labor, and I feel a wash of panic sweeping over me. I'm so afraid of labor. It's something I have to do, because I want kids, but it also feels like something I will not be able to do, no matter how much I read about it, so I dread it.

- My job, sometimes. The balance of praise and punishment is exactly arbitrary enough so that I never know what to expect. On the way to work I fret that I'm going to get bawled out for something random, and I race through the possibilities trying to figure out what it will be. I haven't been bawled out recently, and when I have it's been very mild, but it's still been unjustified as far as I'm concerned, and the praise comes randomly too, so I just never know what to expect. I know this is a sort of high-strung racehorse-temperament complaint - my work environment is pleasant and supportive compared to some, perhaps even most. Yet I still can't stop worrying.

- My boy, sometimes. He can be a tough nut to crack, emotionally. Especially because getting married was my idea, I feel it's my job to make him happy. But I'm never quite sure that he is, or that I'm doing all that I should. My instinct is to just pile on extra affection, but that would be for my own reassurance, not what he would want. I spend a lot of time being alert to his moods and trying to pick up on clues about what he's feeling.

Tomorrow's post will be more upbeat, I promise.