Confessions of a worrier

My mother was a class A worrier — a worrier queen — before dementia swept most of her thoughts away.

She fretted about things that had happened that she could not change, about things that were happening and those that might yet occur (but just as likely, would not).

Sometimes those worries kept her in her bed, even though she found no relief from them there. She worried her worries like a dog with a bone. That was who she was.

So, I come by it honestly, though I am not as proficient as my mother was, nor do I ever hope to be.

What I really hope to be is someone like Deborah Schnitzer, whose Lived Lives column in the Free Press thrums with quiet zen energy and is a must-read for me.

Schnitzer writes about women in their “Third Act,” which I imagine is where I might be, though given some of the longevity on my mother’s side of the family, it’s possible I could have a cameo role in a fourth.

This week, Schnitzer emphasized the importance and freedom of valuing the present moment. It’s something I aspire to, but too often I find myself pulled between what is happening now and anxiously dreading what could come.

As I helped my mother change her sweater on Sunday, I saw how vulnerable she was in the moment when the garment was being pulled over her head, tugging her hair, and her vision was temporarily obscured. She cried out then, and I felt a pang of deep affection for her, this parent who has become as trusting as a child.

Later, she sang the Alphabet Song in her now-reedy voice as I made her a cup of tea. “What’s your name?” she said as I sat down beside her.

“I married my teacher, Mr. Frampton,” she added, as if I was someone she had just met.

I worry what will happen to her — the how and the when — and whether she will know if we are beside her when the time comes. I worry for myself and how I will feel when I no longer have a mother to kiss me and tell me I’m a good girl, even if I’m not sure she knows I am hers.

I know that I should just enjoy these visits with her for what they are and not always be thinking ahead, but it can be difficult to change your own nature.

The other day I told mom that people often say we look alike.

“Do you like that?” she said.

I said it pleased me very much.

“Oh good,” she said. “I’m so glad, because I like it, too.”

It was a beautiful moment, because for the duration of that brief exchange she was fully with me and sounded like herself. It did not matter that she could not summon my name — what mattered was her realization and acknowledgment of our close connection.

She does not have many of those moments, now — all the more reason to treasure them as they come.

In her column, Schnitzer described two artists she knows, both in their 90s, like my mother, who don’t obsess about what the future holds — or even how much future they have left — but rather seize the possibilities of each new day.

“For both, the present matters, each moment dear,” she writes.

That is the kind of psychological liberation I am always aiming for but can’t quite seem to pull off.

Perhaps I am stymied by my mother’s worry genes, or a career spent in the newspaper industry, the death of which was often described as being imminent, or by my concerns for my husband’s health, by my own dread of dying or simply the sheer unknown.

These are the things that make my mind race at 3 a.m., and stealthily invade my dreams, leading to many restless nights.

Schnitzer, in her considerable wisdom, says she has learned to put aside her inner critic (“Am I good enough? Has my life been meaningless? Will what I do matter?”) while mine continues to heckle me mercilessly from the front row.

Schnitzer acknowledges that coming to this new appreciation of the now took time and effort, since we are all trained from childhood to seek approval from the world without rather than the world within.

“I try to unhinge that conditioning, open the circuitry such authorities superintend,” she writes. “I move to softness, to granting myself permission, to the making of mistakes… I understand that it does not matter how many days I might have left in my corner of the ring as it were. What is important is the ring itself, and the day gifted within it.”

I long to feel the sense of freedom that enlightenment must bring, but perhaps it is something I have to grow into as I fumble my way through chapter three.

Pam Frampton lives in St. John’s.

Email pamelajframpton@gmail.com | X: @Pam_Frampton

Bluesky: @pamframpton.bsky.social