I wrote a post about “re-” words back during my breast cancer treatments.  And lately I’ve been thinking agian about how there are a whole lot of both positive and negative words that start with the prefix “re.”  So I’m going to try a series of posts dealing with some of those.

Today I’m starting with review.

I spent some time this morning reviewing my journal from a year ago.  So much has changed. So much has not.

My primary focus early last June was on cats – and kittens.  The cat I now call “Cosette” was “Mama Cat” then.  She brought me four kittens, and I felt great responsibility to them.  Too much so.  So much that I couldn’t enjoy the kittens and their playfulness.  I had to find them homes.  Then I had to get Mama Cat spayed before she got pregnant again.

Then I worried that she’d run away and not come back.

I was consumed by this other “re-” word.

Responsibility.

I felt its weight.

Even though I knew things would work out – that I would find homes for the kittens, that I’d get Mama Cat spayed, that she’d probably choose to live here. . . I still worried.  Too much. Disproportionately.

That is one thing that hasn’t changed.  I still get stressed over responsibility.  And I worry. Disproportionately.  That has been my M.O. since I was a child.

But my whole life has shown me that things work out, that I can handle what comes.

Yet still I worry.  I get anxious.  I feel stressed.

I know I need to relax.  (That will be my next word focus for a post).

My review today showed me that I continue to carry anxiety and worry.  Even though, even though I know that things work out.

It’s a lack of trust, isn’t it?

For now, I’ll show you how things did work out.

First, you see Mama Cat nursing her kittens a year ago.  And then you see her incarnation as Cosette, the spayed cat who didn’t run away, the pet cat who lets me rub her belly now.

Proof that things work out.

Maybe, just maybe, I can be responsible and relax.

At the same time.