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I'm a wee hour worrier. Especially since my kids left the nest. Every night I have this 2:05 ritual. Automatically, I bolt out of my sleep, look at the clock. It glows 2:05. Not 2:04 or 2:06. Two-O five! Don't ask me how I do it, I haven't the foggiest.
Anyway, waking up during the wee hours is the worse time to think. There are no distractions, except for the rhythmic sounds of my ficus dropping leaves and my husband and dog snoring in unison. It's a marvelous time to reflect on all the negatives. Beginning with the earth's ecological problems.It blows my mind to think that ol' Mother Earth won't be here some day. That I won't be here some day. That the ozone is fast becoming a giant Swiss cheese, that Global Warming is turning ice into soup and unknown species are dying off faster than we can identify them.

Heavy.
"What you don't know, won't hurt," my husband gripes as he puts the pillow over his head. "Go to sleep!"
Men just don't get it.
But I can't. So I think about other things, like how much broccoli will cost in the year 2020? What caused the dinosaurs to die off? Did I defrost the chicken before I went to bed? What is this strange bump I feel on the back of my head?
Then, just as I'm about to doze off, I think about my kids. When they were little, I worried about easy things, like tonsils, fevers, overbites, grades. It was uncomplicated worrying. they had fever, I gave them a baby aspirin. They had infected tonsils, out they went (the tonsils, not the kids). Overbites got braces. And if they failed English or Math, they would get their TV rights and chocolate chip cookies taken away for a night.
Now those worries are replaced with other worries. I guess that's what life is. A new batch of worries substituting the old. Bigger and better worries like:

. If they wash their hands after touching raw chicken.
. If they've heard that certain poisonous mussels cause amnesia.
. If they practice safe sex.
. How long will they survive on pepperoni pizza and roast pork fried rice?
. If they practice safe sex.
. How long will their landlords approve of alternate month rent payments?
. Or if they'll put me in a nursing home when I start forgetting their names and babbling: "I am Joan of Arc."
. How many flushes and flashes will I get before the night's over?

And when I finally convince myself that there's really nothing to worry about and that they're mature, responsible gals who have taken charges of their own lives, I fall asleep and the phone rings. It's one of my daughters. She's locked herself out of her apartment and I'm the only one with the other key.
Oh, well...

Learn more about this author, Marie Tomas.
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