I Am Trying to Stop Borrowing Trouble

Day 260 – August 10, 2026

I am very talented at worrying about things that have not happened. This is not a skill I recommend. My brain can take a perfectly ordinary possibility and turn it into a fully funded disaster simulation before breakfast. Something might go wrong. Someone might disappoint me. A plan might fall apart. A good thing might end. A bad thing might come back.

I could be embarrassed. I could fail. I could get hurt. Apparently there is no limit to what an anxious mind can pre-suffer. That phrase has been sitting with me lately. Pre-suffer. Because that is what it is. Nothing has happened yet, but I am already emotionally paying for it. Terrible financial model. No return on investment.

I think trauma made this worse because part of me learned that bad things can happen without warning. Once you know that, it becomes tempting to believe the answer is to anticipate everything. If I think through every possibility, maybe I can prevent being blindsided again. Very logical. Completely impossible.

There are too many possibilities. Life is a terrible collaborator when it comes to predictability. I can prepare for one thing and get hit with something entirely different. That used to terrify me. It still does sometimes. But lately I am starting to see the other side of it. If I cannot predict everything bad, I also cannot predict everything good. That matters.

I did not predict this life. Not this version. I did not predict Wild Poise becoming what it has become. I did not predict opportunities arriving from places I was not looking. I did not predict the exact people who would show up for me. I did not predict how funny some terrible days would accidentally become because Roger did something so stupid it temporarily interrupted my nervous breakdown.

Life surprises in both directions. I forget that. Fear only advertises one side. Bad thing coming. Prepare immediately. Offer expires tonight. I am trying not to buy everything it sells me. That does not mean I am becoming reckless.

I still plan. I still think ahead. I still keep my eyes open. But there is a difference between preparation and rehearsing pain. Preparation gives you something useful. Rehearsing pain just makes you tired. I have done enough of that.

There are whole conversations I have had in my head with people who never said the thing I was responding to. Arguments. Breakups. Professional disasters. Awkward moments. Full cinematic productions. Excellent performances all around. Zero basis in reality. Meanwhile, actual life is standing nearby like, are you done?

Sometimes. Working on it.

I think this is part of learning to trust the present again. Not believing nothing bad will happen. That would be naive. Just accepting that I do not have to live every possible future in advance. I only have to live this one when it arrives. That sounds simple. It is not.

Anxiety loves advance copies. But I am getting better at saying no spoilers. Today is enough. Today has actual information. Actual people. Actual choices. Tomorrow can introduce itself when it gets here. And maybe this is another place where ordinary life helps me.

There is something grounding about having small things to do. Walk Roger. Make food. Answer something. Clean something. Read something. Watch something ridiculous.

The body cannot always tell the difference between imagined danger and real danger, but sometimes it can tell the difference between sitting inside a hypothetical catastrophe and standing in a kitchen making coffee. Physical reality helps. Here is the cup. Here is the counter. Here is the dog staring at me because clearly I have forgotten he has never eaten before in his entire life.

Here is now. I need more of now. Not because now is always safe. Not because now is always good. Because now is the only place where I can actually do anything. The future is where anxiety writes fan fiction. The past is where memory keeps receipts. Now is where I live. I am trying to remember that before I pay emotional rent on something that has not even moved in.

Chaos in one hand. Grace in the other.

And considerably fewer imaginary disasters on the calendar.