What, Me Worry?

Darn those yearbook photos—they always come back to haunt us and remind the world that yes indeed, we once thought puka shell necklaces were the epitome of fashion.

But yearbook photos do more than verify bad taste. A few years back, I remember reading about a study that was performed at U.C. Berkeley. Researchers analyzed old photos from the 1958 and 1960 yearbooks of Mills College, in Oakland, and discovered that women who looked the happiest went on to live the happiest lives. The study concluded that, “…individual differences in positive emotional expression were linked to personality stability and development across adulthood….”

This would explain why, in my college photo, my eyebrows are stitched together and I look gravely concerned. Perhaps I was afraid someone would steal my puka shell necklace. But even more so, this particular photo captured my essence as a professional worrywart, which really comes as no surprise when you consider my mentors.

Dad worried that every time it rained, California would enter its little-known, but very real, monsoon season. As a construction worker in San Francisco, each day of rain meant he couldn’t work. Before long, he’d be out of a job and we’d all end up in the poorhouse, which is, you know, that big, red brick two-story building on the outskirts of town, so shut the door for Pete’s sake, were we trying to air condition the entire neighborhood and what did we think, that he was made of money?

Mother worried that if I left our neat and tidy home suburban home to visit San Francisco, I would be kidnapped by an international ring of evil organ thieves who would rip open my abdomen and steal my appendix. She swore that she had once read that in some third-world countries, deep-fried appendix in peanut oil is considered an aphrodisiac.

I was 21 before I realized that crossing the Bay Bridge to visit San Francisco was not tantamount to suicide.

Today, of course, I realize how needlessly my parents worried. Unfortunately, however, that awareness has not stopped me from turning into them.

I worry about growing old alone because I couldn’t find someone to love me. Or I worry about finding someone who loves me, except maybe this isn’t a healthy love but rather, some sick obsession in which my admirer wants to shoot a president in order to impress me, because why else would he stare at me the way he does?

Or is he staring at that mole on my neck? The edges are a bit irregular. Maybe I have melanoma. But wait, wasn’t I recently turned away as a blood donor for being anemic, which can sometimes can be a precursor to leukemia? And what about my dizzying headaches? Dr. Greene on “ER” had the same symptoms and he ended up dying from a brain tumor. Dear God!

I race through my dog-eared medical dictionary and discover an illness in which I have every single symptom. According to this book, I’m a doomed woman, doomed! Oh, but wait.

I don’t have a prostate. Never mind.

I read about a woman who awoke one morning to discover she had lost use of both hands. Completely and without cause. Her hands are now like two slabs of dead meat attached to her wrists and her doctors are bewildered as to why.

I worry that I too might awake one morning with two slabs of dead meat attached to my wrists and wonder: how will I pluck those four stubborn hairs on my chin, the ones that have defied years of electrolysis, bleach and waxing? I phone my best friend, Pam, and make her promise that if I ever wake up with two slabs of dead meat attached to my wrists, she will pluck my four chin hairs for me.

I’m sure she’s rolling her eyes as I hear her sigh and reply that yes, she’ll pluck my four chin hairs for me if I should ever wake up with two slabs of dead meat attached to my wrists. She’s heard all this before.

My paranoia doesn’t set with the sun. When it’s time to go to bed, I worry that I’ll fall asleep and forget to blow out my scented candle, which is just waiting to explode into engulfing flames the second my eyes are shut. It could happen, you know. Although I’m not yet sleepy, I blow it out.

And with my clock radio playing softly, I lie in bed and think about new things to worry about as the night DJ plays one of my favorite songs. The song I have declared my personal mantra: Bob Marley’s, “Three Little Birds.”

“Don’t worry about a thing, ‘cause every little thing’s gonna be alright.”

I like that particular song because it echoes a favorite Bible scripture that states: "Don't worry so much about what might happen tomorrow, that you miss what is happening today.” Excellent advice, I’d say.

Now if someone could just convince that stern-faced girl with the puka shell necklace.