When to Worry

I'm not sure where it stems from, but I like someone to know where I am at all times. I'm a big fan of checking in. During college whenever I would make the 70 mile drive back to school from my parents' house, I would promptly call home upon arriving in Athens to let them know I made it safely. If I'm running late from work or having dinner with the girls, I call Mr. Cob to give him my ETA and location (more for my benefit than his). I guess I'm fearful of veering off the road and ending up in a ditch for hours before anyone finds me or realizes I’m missing. You could say I'm overly imaginative and scared of unlikely, yet terrifying scenarios.

Perhaps it goes back to the fact that my house was shot at when I was in the 5th grade. Yes, I said shot. It began in the summer when I was at a swim meet and my dad drove home to find three guys robbing our house. Dad was smart enough to write down the guys’ license plate number and the police were able to track down the criminals. The night before the burglary trial one of the men came back and shot between 7 and 10 bullets at our house. Did I mention that our house was in an upper-middle class neighborhood of the Richmond suburbs…not exactly a high-crime area. This event kind of rocked my whole “home is a safe-haven” feeling. I had to sleep in my big brother’s room for months afterwards and I’ve never quite felt 100% comfortable in my parents' house at night since. Even today at 28 years old I have to sleep with a nightlight on in my bedroom at my parents' house. As you’ve probably guessed, I’m not sure I’ve ever really fully recovered from that event.

I did live by myself in law school, to prove to myself that I could do it and make an attempt at getting over my fears. And I did live by myself for all three years, without hardly an incident – although in fairness, after the first year, Mr. Cob was around an awful lot, so I wasn’t exactly alone too often. But still, I did live by myself and conquered some of my fears.

But I still like for someone to always know where I am and to thus realize if I haven’t made it to wherever it is I’m supposed to be. And I like to know where my loved ones are. I’ve been known to anxiously call Mr. Cob when he hasn’t come home when I thought he should be. I’m working on staying calm in these types of situations and understanding that things do come up and not everything turns into a catastrophe.

Last night, though, I lost it and became quite hysterical. Let me back up. Mr. Cob, as we all know, is a trial attorney and has been working very long hours lately. Last night he began a trial for a doctor client who was under investigation by his hospital. The hospital’s procedure is to have a peer review “trial” and they happen to be at night, apparently the only time doctors are available to judge one another. Mr. Cob told me the trial was from 5pm – 9pm, so I knew he’d be home late. About ten minutes after 9pm my phone rang. Mr. Cob was calling me, just when I thought he would be. But when I answered the phone he wasn’t there. I figured he was just calling me to check in and let me know he was on his way home, so I didn’t bother trying him back. Then I noticed it was 10pm and still no word. I tried his cell, but there was no answer. I stayed calm. 11pm rolled around. Again I tried his cell and his office only to get his voicemail. Yet I managed to keep my cool, really, I did. Around 11:30pm my mind started to wander to “that” place. You know the one. The worrying one. But I suppressed my fears.

At midnight I called him and left an admittedly frantic message. And then I lost my shit. I broke down crying, convinced he was hurt, lost or worse. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know where his trial was or the phone number of the partner that he was with. So at 12:10am, I did the only thing that occurred to me, I called my parents. They were smart enough to call my brother who lives only ten minutes away and he came over to sit with me. At this point I was convinced that the worst had happened. There was no possible way his trial was still going on and it’s not in his nature to go out on a work night and not call. And for goodness sake, he’s driving one of those dangerous Toyotas. I was sure the gas pedal had gotten stuck and his 9pm phone call was his last ditch effort to contact me and tell me he loved me before he ran off the road. Hyperventilation was starting to set in.

Then at 12:45am my phone finally rang – it was Mr. Cob. Little did he know he was about to talk to a crazy woman who had gone off the deep end convinced she was going to live the rest of her life husband-less. So where was he? Still working – the trial lasted until almost one in the morning!!! (And to think some of the doctors might have been going to do surgery on people in a few hours…scary stuff). Mr. Cob at first didn’t understand my hysteria, but then on the car ride home he said he put the chain of events and timeline together (and the fact that he is driving a Toyota) and felt bad for not getting in contact with me to let me know the trial was running late, but his cell phone didn’t work in the basement of the hospital.

So when he finally got home I wanted to both hug him and smack him. I told him never to leave me worried about his whereabouts until the early morning ever again. And then I hugged him and didn’t let go for a very long time.

My question is: at what point do you start to worry? And then, what do you do with your worry? Just sitting on the couch sobbing is not an effective way of dealing with fear. Should I have started calling hospitals and police stations? Checking the internet for traffic incidents? Or just have gone to bed and hoped he was there when I woke up? I hope I don’t have to make this decision again anytime soon. I should probably work on maintaining my composure and not jumping to drastic conclusions as quickly as I do. But it’s deeply ingrained in who I am and will be difficult to change. My mom asked me a good question tonight – what the hell am I going to do when I have a 16 year old kid who never checks in? I told her I’ll probably have an ulcer by then. I think I should begin meditating now.