This week, the weekend challenge is the word “Anxiety”
“Anxiety is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you very far.”—Jodi Picoult
Anxiety
Anxiety has been my companion for many years.
Sometimes it sat quietly in the background. Other times, it demanded my full attention.
But during the Covid lockdown, something changed.
Only a couple of months before the world shut down, my husband had started dialysis. Suddenly, we were hearing every day how dangerous Covid could be, especially for vulnerable people.
And three times a week, he still had to leave our home and go to the hospital for dialysis.
There was no staying safely behind a locked door for us.
Every dialysis day brought the same fear home with him:
What if he catches it?
I couldn’t switch that thought off.
The world became smaller. The uncertainty became bigger. And the anxiety that had lived beside me for years suddenly seemed to move into every corner of my life.
But we had something else.
We had our horses.
During lockdown, they became our escape, our therapy, our little piece of freedom when everything else felt closed.
Outside with them, life still made sense.
They didn’t know about infection rates, restrictions or frightening headlines. They wanted food, attention and care. They breathed beside us. They grounded us.
For a little while, we could forget what was happening beyond our gate.
I sometimes say our horses saved us during lockdown, and in many ways, I believe they did.
Even after the restrictions ended and life supposedly returned to normal, part of that anxiety stayed behind. Crowds became harder. Too much noise, too many people, too much happening at once could make my body react as though danger were still there.
Anxiety is strange like that.
The danger can be gone, yet your body remembers how it felt to be afraid.
Over time, I’ve learned ways to quiet it.
I meditate.I listen to music.I go outside.I put my bare feet on the earth and ground myself.
And perhaps some of that began with those horses.
They reminded me that when my mind was racing towards tomorrow, there was still a living, breathing today standing right in front of me.
Anxiety may still pull up its rocking chair occasionally.
But I’ve learned that I don’t have to sit there with it.
I can get up.
I can step outside.
And I can keep going.
With love, coffee, poetry, and stardust,
— Maggie The Afterlove Voice 💫
My new album “Beneath The Northern Star ” is out. You can play and/or save the songs on your streaming platforms here:
🌙 Beneath the Northern Stars – My New Album
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