Troubled Waters

It all came to a head on a beautiful crisp spring morning. My fiancée was driving.

We both worked as independent contractors for financial firms and had recently relocated across the country to where the work was more plentiful. The move had been expensive, stressful and tiring, but ultimately we were very happy. We had met some great new friends, we were both earning good money, and we had our wedding planned for the end of the year. By all rights it should’ve been smooth sailing.

But then the little voice in the back of my head spoke up.

“But what if…?”

That’s all it would say, but it was enough to steer me into troubled waters.

“We’ve gained quite a bit of debt because of the move,” I’d think, getting caught by the rip current of my anxious mind, “What if we lose our jobs? We wouldn’t be able to pay our rent, we could end up homeless!”

“Stop.” I’d catch myself. “You’re both good workers with glowing appraisals, working on a large scale, long term project, there’s no reasonable reason why you would lose your job.”

Logic. This would calm the waters. But not for long.

“What if we fall ill?” The anxious thoughts would surge again, displacing all the reasonable ordered thoughts in my head.

I’d grab a lifeline.

“You both have insurance to cover accident and sickness, all you would need is to wait a month for the policy to start paying out, and that’s not a massive issue.”

Another period of calm, but they’d grow shorter each time.

The thoughts crashed one on top of the other like waves and it was all I could do to keep my composure.

I’d try to distract myself, take out my phone planning to browse aimlessly. I remembered I bought a lottery ticket the night before so I checked the numbers. I had matched some numbers. Quite a lot of numbers. My pulse was racing, all anxious thoughts put to one side. For now.

“We’ve won 20 grand...” I said in barely more than a whisper.

She asked me to repeat myself and I did. She nearly drove us off the road she was so excited. This would pay off the wedding. This was a godsend. All my previous anxiety washed away and we drove along at peace, the cool spring morning one of the sweetest I’d ever known.

Until.

“But what if…?”

The thoughts wouldn’t stay away for long. The waters started getting choppy again.

As we arrived at work she noticed my demeanor. I didn’t want to drag her into the depths with my nonsense, but I knew she’d fret otherwise. I told her what I was feeling and, ever the pragmatist, she set out to demonstrate in black and white why I was wrong.

She pulled out her little black notebook. She used this for everything. Addresses, phone numbers, shopping lists, notes. Technology replaced many things for many people, but her little black notebook was going nowhere.

So we sat and we made notes in the book, covering every conceivable expense, from the moving debt to the wedding, to the nuclear scenario of losing our jobs and the insurance not paying out. She showed definitively in each scenario that even without our windfall, we would be absolutely fine.

And even with it laid out in black and white in front of my eyes, with all the logic in the world backing it up, it just didn’t help.

That’s when we realized I should see a professional. So I made an appointment. I got some help.

I figure the waters won’t always be calm, but maybe I can learn to navigate them?