Fear and Friendship

After a pretty decent hiatus, my anxiety has been back lately. The good news about that is that I think the hiatus can be mainly credited to regular acupuncture, which I've had to miss the last few weeks due to scheduling craziness. So, acupuncture seems to be helping my anxiety a lot. Which, yay.

But lately, on more than one occasion, I've been lying in bed and come to panic. Often over my children. Which stands to reason. I love these two beings with everything in me. They are like magic. Sometimes, I sit and just watch them and think, "Look at that! We did that!" Amazing. They're far from perfect, mind you, but their perfect in their lack of perfection.

B seems to have inherited my anxiety, along with most everything about me. And this has been on my mind a lot this week. Maybe it's because the other day was one of those arbitrary social media "holidays." This one was "Best Friends Day." It made me think about my best friend.

I was B's age when we became best friends. Seven. At seven, we chose each other. And we've continued to choose each other through life's roller coasters. Sometimes outward rollercoasters, sometimes rollercoasters within our friendship. But here we are, all these years later.

What does this have to do with B? Well. When I was an axious worrying seven year old, I found myself a kindred spirit. And through the intervening thirty plus (ahem) years, we have taken turns talking each other down from ledge after ledge. Failed fourth grade math tests, mean girls, meaner boys,  jobs, the two nicest boys, motherhood, all of it.


My family is so close, obviously. But my best friend is the family I chose, and she's been around so long that my whole family accepts her as part of our family.

When my Dad died, she packed up her then four month old and came to my sister's house, where she proceeded to spend most of the next week at my side.

One of my greatest hopes for B is that he finds a friend like this, to travel through life with. We anxious types can benefit from something so solid.