Year 42, day 2. The other night, at a dinner with four amazing women, Beth asked me about the highlights of the last year. It was a trip to New York with Greg this past summer. We canoed in the Adirondacks. I found a book store with books to feed my soul. Thus began my ascent from a multitude of life-crippling fears. In the midst of a grief so huge I couldn't even wrap my arms around it, the loss of my job, I read these books and found solace. And found hope, faith even.

I've written about anxiety on this blog before, likening her to a lean, hungry Calista Flockhart-type woman knocking on my door every few years. Very seductive, she pulled me into the fear cycle every time--early on in big ways, later in small unending ways. I've worked my way through it, but could never find the path out of it. Now I think I am.

What I'm learning from wise people who have gone before me is this--I can change my mind about fear. Fear is about the future. Fear is about the past--remembering crappy things that have happened and letting those memories affect me now. But I can't change the future one whit by worrying about it. The past doesn't exist anymore--it's gone. So I can pray for a shift of perspective and be mindful of life as it happens right now. I know I've gone on about mindfulness before here, but this is it. This is the path. It's about healing something I thought had no cure. It's about faith in a God that is bigger than a whole world burning up with fear and anxiety. It's about the lilies of the field.

So after 41 years, I'm waking up again. It feels really really good.