Like Ketchup

December 26, 2007

When you’re waiting for a phone call, the anticipation is ridiculous based on the importance of the call.

Today I’m waiting for a call from a close friend and the news will likely be horrible. But until I get the phone call I won’t know anything so I sit here wondering if it would be better to have already gotten his call or to be waiting for it.

I guess until you have the facts on a problem or topic or illness, you can’t respond to the situation. You can’t make plans of any sort and you have very little control. That’s probably the part I hate the most. I’m a control freak and get uneasy when I can’t affect changes.

A few years back, when I spoke to a shrink about this, I learned an exercise to calm myself. He asked me to imagine the worst possible outcome of any anticipated event. In this case, the worst possible outcome would be no call at all. That’s unlikely.

Next worst is the level of the news. Well, if it’s bad…and it likely could be…I can’t do anything about it anyway. So what help would it be to get all worked up? Probably none. The scenarios after that get better in tiny degrees and again, my freaking out won’t help anything.

So I guess I’ll sit here and stare at my cell phone a few thousand times an hour and wait.

Anticipating.

More to come…