Closer to Fine
I am the Queen of Worrying. I am also the Queen of Planning. For me, the two go hand in hand. If I can't plan, I worry, and then when I make a plan, I worry it's the wrong one. Planning is not inherently a negative thing, so I'm trying to balance my planning with being able to let go of control.
I don't often succeed.
I think I used to function with this underlying belief that if I could just get to the next chapter, I could give myself release from the worry. Needless to say, there is always something else up ahead to worry about. As soon as one thing resolves, another will inevitably pop up.
I know all the Bible verses about not being anxious and worrying,* and they do help and are always good reminders, but recently it was a song that really struck me and helped me in the process of surrendering the need to worry.
That song is "Closer to Fine" by the Indigo Girls. The chorus goes like this:
And I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine, yeah
The closer I am to fine, yeah
I was on a run the other day and this song came on my playlist. Running is already one of the few times I feel a complete lightening of my spirit, and my body and soul are in sync with letting go of all worry and stressors. Being able to run has always felt so freeing to me, especially in the outdoors.
The solidarity I felt with this song made me smile. I am always researching things to death, trying to find answers so I can have peace, which really means control. Google easily becomes my enemy.
As an Enneagram 4, I also have a strong proclivity to the whimsical and mystic. I think it used to be easier for me to rest in not knowing things and find joy in mystery and wonder.
I remember putting together a list of my favorite quotes in high school, and one was from a book with which I was enthralled called Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Engdahl.
One of the characters says, "If we only ever believed what we understood, how limited we'd be."
That has stayed with me all these years.
Despite living in an age to which we ascribe the monikers "Modern," "Technological," and "Advanced," there is still so much we don't know and understand.
You needn't look further than COVID-19 to realize the truth of this. And while we should certainly keep researching and developing our medical and scientific understanding, reason does fall short at a certain point.
It certainly doesn't assuage anxiety like you might think it would. In fact, more information, more authority figures, more influencers simply muddle things when viewed as a whole.
I think this is why people strive for simplicity. Not ignorance or denial, but the fundamentals of what we need as humans. The poets are usually the ones who call us back to simplicity. Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, and all the Romantic poets and writers made this their mantra, championing simplicity and the wonders of the ever-moving, yet peaceful remarkable natural world.
These are the things I've been dwelling on when worry threatens to overwhelm me. Paradoxically, peace is closer when I don't seek a definitive, but am willing to let the future remain unknown, yesterday a promise that there is always this moment.
*"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God" (Philippians 4:6 ESV)
*And many more here: https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/worry-and-anxiety-bible-verses/
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