I'd like to get off this ride for awhile.

I find myself with a few unexpected hours this Sunday afternoon, and you would think I'd do something enjoyable, like take a nap or watch a football game or at least read the paper. But I am having a hard day, a bad day, one of those days you wish was already over the way you wish a bad movie was over so you could walk out of the theatre and remind yourself that it wasn't real to begin with.

It's nothing dramatic. Nobody died, or got a terrible diagnosis. Church attendance was a bit light, but we had a fairly decent snowstorm last night, so that's probably the reason. Nobody said anything bad or mean to me; nothing broke or leaked.

I think worrying runs in my blood. My maternal grandmother was famous for it, so much so that we stopped telling her some things until after they were safely over: things like somebody taking their driving test or having their wisdom teeth out. Most of the time I can keep my worrying under control. For the past few days, it's been simmering, but I've kept the lid on - barely. Until last night, when it boiled over and now I can't seem to put myself back together. I was sick the other day and queasy again this morning (please don't suggest I'm pregnant, because it's not possible today) and at first I thought it was a mild flu, but now, I don't think so. My stomach is churning all the time. I think I'm making myself sick by worrying.

I think what pushed me over the edge was putting our house on the market. We love our house, and it's a desirable house. But the market is slow. And we are moving to a much higher-cost housing area, so we need to make a decent amount on this house. Because we have quite a bit of time before it needs to sell, we priced it at the high end of a range our realtor gave us for our area; gives us some room to bargain and hey - you never know until you try, right?

It's been on the market four days, and there have already been five or six showings. That's good. Of course, when we bought this house just under two years ago, we made an offer the first day the house was on the market, and there were four other couples waiting behind us if we had dropped out. The market is different, I get that. But I worry.

Last night we went to dinner with some friends. It was her birthday, and it's nearly mine, so we always go out together for a little celebration. There were three showings of our house, so we were at Beloved's parents all afternoon. Beloved forfeited two really big basketball games he wanted to watch in order to go to dinner. After which we went to their house and played some games and chatted until about 10pm, when Beloved abruptly walked into the next room, grabbed my coat and his, and hinted in no uncertain terms that it was time to go home. I was not particularly happy about that, but it wasn't the time to argue. Also, I had consumed several glasses of wine.

When we pulled into the driveway, the argument started. It really wasn't that important - he felt like he had "taken one for the team," as he put it, by going to dinner. I felt that he was insinuating I never did the same. I got mad. He got mad. And we each said things we probably shouldn't have. We talked through it, but today I feel a little shaky. We argue so rarely that it really throws me off when we do.

The agent told us we've gotten tons of good feedback on the house, but all I can hear is the one negative thing she said: that a few people have felt it's on the high end of pricing. Beloved and I are kind to each other again today and no permanent damage was done, but I keep replaying my frustration over and over again. As I type I'm listening to the washing machine, and it occurs to me that that's exactly how I feel: trapped in a cycle, tossing the same things around and around again, and I just want to get out and I want it to be OVER so all this anxiety can go away.

I drove to church in a snowstorm today so it took longer than usual, but fortunately I had just checked out Anne Lamott's Grace (Eventually) on CD from the library. So I listened to her (I love her, and I'd never heard her voice before) and it was the beginning of what I needed. Her chapter about Sam, her son, trying to sleep in his new room but only able to move away from her about three feet every night, scooting in his sleeping bag a few feet closer to his new room every day. Sometimes having to go back a little. "Sometimes that's the lesson," she said, "scoot, scoot, slog, move backwards, scoot a little again."

And about trying to get her Sunday School class to understand the wailing wall, telling them that sometimes you have to let things go in order to let God have them for awhile. Like if you are thirsty and someone offers you a juice box during snack time, you have to let go of the crayons in your hand so you can hold the juice.

Sometimes it helps me to write things down (hence the blog, I suppose). So right now, I am going to write down all my worst fears at the moment and see if it helps. Here we go.

1. I am afraid our house will not sell.
2. I am afraid our house will sell but it will take a really long time.
3. I am afraid we will have to take a really low offer and Beloved will be upset.
4. I am afraid Beloved will not find a job he likes and he will resent me for taking him away from his family.
5. I am afraid I will hate this new congregation and wish I had never left where I am.
6. I am afraid I will not like living near my own parents anymore, 12 years having passed since I did.
7. I am afraid Beloved and I will keep fighting over stupid things until the house sells and even though I think we will be fine in the end, the idea of this exhausts me.
8. I am afraid we cannot afford a decent house in the new town.
9. I am afraid my current congregation will fall apart when I leave and that will mean I did not do a good job at empowering them while I was there.
10. But I am also afraid they will not fall apart at all and they will instead choose to do all the things I tried to keep them from doing or go back to old ways I tried to change.
11. I am afraid we will never have children.
12. I am afraid that I DO NOT KNOW HOW NOT TO BE AFRAID ANYMORE.
13. I am afraid Rudy Guiliani will be the next president.
14. I am afraid I do not really know to pray anymore.
15. I am afraid that I am giving myself an ulcer.

I think seeing them in black and white helps me feel less afraid, a bit. But the only one that really terrifies me is # 12: I am afraid that I do not know how to stop being afraid. I can't sleep. I wake up panicking and even though I try to tell myself to let God handle it, it doesn't work. I am really grateful Anne Lamott has experienced the same thing and can talk about it, but it doesn't actually solve anything that she has. The irony of this is that people who go through similar things and can write so well about them are an amazing gift, but I also hate them a little in the midst of my own turmoil because they are safely on the other side of what they're writing about, whereas I am stuck in the spin cycle.

I know that I am responding to all the anxiety around me about my leaving. I keep trying to tell myself not to do this, but it's not working.

I am going to put all of this in God's inbox, as Anne Lamott suggests. I am going to try to leave it there a little bit at a time. But I am going to fail at that, so I will need some help. My prayer life has been shaky for awhile, kind of like I felt about Beloved last night - not terrible, but weak. So I will need some help with that too.

If you have time to pray for me, I would really appreciate it.