I Am A Worrier

I have realized over the past couple weeks that I am a worrier. I do not know if it is something that has developed over time or if I have always been a worrier. I guess I never really realized this about myself until a friend of mine pointed it out to me.

I do not worry about weather I am going to die today, or fail a test. It’s not that kind of constant worrying about random issues. Instead I worry about my friends and family, a specific few to be exact. There is even a certain someone who I worry about probably the most out of everyone, and he is not even in my life anymore. He is not in my life and I still worry everyday about how he is doing.

The type of worrying I do tends to be a long-term thing, instead of something I worry about one day and then forget about the next day. You might say that this is a good quality about me, and to an extent it is. I care about my friends and family more than anything. At times though I wish I was not a worrier. This would be the quality about me that I would like to burn, my “fwame-wesistant suit.”

Or maybe I want to be a worrier, but I also want to be able to turn this quality about me on and off. My worrying often brings me down, like I have a constant weight on my shoulders. I used to feel like it was my responsibility to help my friends, like if they could not help themselves I could help them fix whatever problem they were having. I used to believe this so much that my friends’ problems became my problems and anything that was going on in my life would take the back seat. When I could not help my friends I felt partially responsible for what was going on in their lives. It was exhausting.

A few weeks ago I had an epiphany. I finally realized that I could not help the person that I had focused so much of my time helping. I finally realized that as much as I care for that person, it was not my responsibility to fix his problems. I think this was the first step in the process of burning my flame resistant suit. Although I am still a worrier I now realize that I cannot fix everything and that it is not my responsibility to fix everything. Sometimes I still feel the weight on my shoulders but I am learning to separate the problems in my life from the problems in my friends’ lives. I still worry and I probably always will but I hope that I can separate myself from the weight that comes with my friends’ lives while still being there for them. (480)