Life: Check Your Brain at the Door

I've been here on earth for thirty-eight years now, and one thing I've noticed is that life is so much easier if you just don't think about any of it. Consider this advice from Fly the Mom Dog on Babe (I realize it's probably been a while since you saw it - just go with it for a minute): "We have to do dogs' work now. You're a pig. Your job is to stay here and eat your food." If you've seen the movie, you know that yes, Babe the Pig does much more with his life than "stay there and eat his food" - an important aspect of the pig-fattening-and-later-butchering process. It's great that Babe had so much ambition and talent and the opportunity to use them, and consequently... I won't spoil it for you. For those of us who are higher on the food chain, life is a bit more complicated and I have a hard time not stressing about every little detail. Money! I like it. How can I get more? Cable TV! I hate paying for it. How can I convince my husband it's not necessary? Children! I love them. How can I get them to make correct choices? etc. etc. It's enough to make you crazy if you think too hard about it. It's been a hard thing for me to deal with since I came home from Montana. Why that should be, I have no idea, but it finally got to be too much today. After a frightful episode with the bank, I called Bri and collapsed in a pool of tears. It was the kind of phone call every husband dreads getting, right after "I'm sorry, Charles, I know I promised to love you forever, but I'm looking for a black-tie guy and you're more of a barbecue person." (This was a real-life conversation between our friend Charles and the Pasty Waif/She-pire/Wire-Haired Man Goblin, aka Nicole, his now-ex-wife. But we didn't take sides or anything.) Now, what was I talking about? Oh yes - I think too much. I worry too much. I stress too much. I am the embodiment of the statement "stress causes belly fat" - that, and five C-sections will also do it. I've decided to go about my life, tell my brain I've moved, and not give it my new address.