When a friend was getting sober a few years ago, he confessed his anxieties to his Irish American dad. "I'm so afraid all the time," he said. And his father had simply replied, "You're a grown man, what have you got to be afraid of?"
I think about those words of wisdom when I too am afraid, which is pretty much every day. I don't mean just afraid of climate change and global pandemics and mass shootings and whatever else is terrorizing your own imagination today. I mean that I find it incredibly easy to psych myself out about the seemingly smallest things. I'm afraid a friend hasn't replied to a text because she's secretly mad about something. I'm afraid I'll regret ordering the special when I had really been craving the usual. Afraid the chicken will turn out dry. Mostly, I'm afraid of messing up.
