Love and Fear

The other night when I couldn't sleep, it was because, as occasionally happens to me, I became fixated on the thought that something (I don't know what, precisely) was going to happen to B. I've gotten better at managing that anxiety, which all mothers experience, I know, over the past three plus years. I've gotten better, too, at being truly IN the moment and enjoying my time with him as much as I can. But still, as a lifelong insomniac and anxiety sufferer, there are still those moments, late at night, when that fear grips my chest and won't let go until I swallow some Benadryl (I'm pregnant, so I only take Benadryl) and finally pass out.

Today, probably because I'm still overtired, and the weather is crappy (yet again), and I'm annoyed at my bandaged finer (long story, but the ring finger of my right hand is all gauzed up and it's annoying), I've been kind of cranky. E came home early from work and has born the brunt of the crankiness. He's enormously patient with this, thank God. But then I read a blost post on one of the blogs I follow, about a woman who lost her husband, and it reminded me once again that I shouldn't take that stuff out on E, because a) I'm so lucky that he's here and healthy and b) he's like the greatest husband that ever lived and does not, in any way, deserve my crankiness.

Love and fear are so intertwined, aren't they? When you love someone, isn't there always an element of fear that something will happen to take them away from you? And sometimes, it can be so easy to fall prey to that fear, and hold ourselves at arms' length, or to try to actively prevent those things. But can we, really? Isn't the best thing we can do just to make the most of the good times? To cherish the important people in our lives while we have them? To open ourselves up to as much love as we can, since in the end, the love is what gets us through those tough times, whether real or imaginary (the times, not the love)? I think so.

So, instead of being ruled that fear, I try to seize as many moments as I can. Of course, I still have those rough nights. I'm a work in progress. But I'm trying.