When you are small and fear the monsters that you imagine are waiting under your bed, with luck, there is a loving adult who shines a light on their non-existence and allays your fears so you can sleep. Life propels your forward through childhood to eventual adulthood with the requisite schooling and relationships, responsibilities, challenges and desires- resulting in the perpetual reality of managing uncertainty and risk. Little is more stress inducing than pregnancy and parenthood and babies who grow up to become teenagers whose actions can be unending sources of concern.
Now as the parent of young adults, the unknown floats up perpetually and in the absence of their presence, I have to have faith that our well being is not precarious and that with luck and our better angels, we will survive to see another day.
Yet the inner turmoil wrought by worry can easily paralyze me. Then I'm forced to accept the laundry list of unknowns, press ahead and appreciate that the abyss while ever present has been averted, at least for now.
