It was the Friday before my youngest child’s senior prom. He and his girlfriend were so excited about the weekend. The weather forecast was excellent after a pretty awful Chicago winter. My oldest son had just successfully defended his master’s dissertation and we were planning a road trip to attend his and his fiancé’s graduation the following weekend. Our daughter had secured a summer internship in Washington, DC, and she was heading home from college the following week.

I was feeling fabulous on this beautiful Friday. I had fully recovered from having my gallbladder removed. That morning I had gone to a challenging hot yoga class and was able to get through the whole class just a few weeks after my surgery. As I got in my car to head to the city for lunch with two absolutely amazing women, I rolled my windows down to take in the beautiful weather and put on some of my favorite music. The day was absolutely freakin’ perfect! PERFECT!

My car hits the mostly clear highway and I’m reveling in the perfection of the day. I’m grateful and humble, yet still feeling the joy that comes with a day that is going just right. Then suddenly it hits me. My stomach ties in a painful knot, my chest gets tight, and my mind goes absolutely wild. I hear the words “but what if . . . “ come into my head and the feeling of dread washes over me.

“What if the weather turns bad for prom? What if the roads are bad driving to Indiana for my son’s graduation? What if my daughter can’t find decent housing in Washington, DC? What if someone gets sick?” And on and on the “what ifs” went. They got progressively more dramatic and miserable, far too unmentionable to say out loud or include here. However, if you’ve ever gone to the worst possible case scenario in any situation, you know where I went.

My perfect day had suddenly become truly dreadful. I was crying as I drove into the city. Every fear, every worry, every ridiculous scenario went through my head. This is my default and it goes something like this, “I’m so lucky. I’m so grateful. Life is so incredibly perfect and beautiful . . . wait . . . it’s dangerous for me to think like this. Something bad might happen and then I will be completely unhappy because I allowed myself to be joyful, to be happy right this moment.” I hope you’ve seen the ridiculousness in my thoughts, yet I’m guessing some of you can relate.

How to Wash Away The Worry

Where in the world did I ever get the idea that if I am too happy, too joyful, too alive that is when things get rough and I won’t be able to handle it? Why can’t I just revel in the perfect day when it comes my way? Why are the “what ifs” always waiting to drag a beautiful day away from me? There are some deep seeded answers to those questions, and we’d need more than a few therapy sessions to dig them all out. However, this isn’t my first visit to the dread of the perfect day, so I do know what to do to bring that perfection back.

As I had now turned my perfect day into a sad song, cry fest in my car, I gave myself a quick pinch and said, “Wake the hell up!” What I meant was, “Come back. It’s all okay. Enjoy this day. It’s here, it’s waiting for you. The “what ifs” are just that…”ifs.” So I started repeating my get calm mantra, which is, “All is well.” I repeated it about five million times that day until the dread left my body and I allowed the joyful perfection back in.

I was arriving at a restaurant to meet my friends. At first, I couldn’t find a good parking space and I felt the dread hanging out next to my car window. I kept circling the block, found the perfect spot and flipped the dread off as I bounced in the restaurant to an absolutely perfect women’s lunch date. After lunch, I got back to my car and realized that I might have been late in updating the digital parking meter, and there on my windshield was a Chicago City parking ticket. I threw out a few swear words thinking that it was the dreaded $100 ticket that happens when you let the meter run out.

Driving home, I decided that the $100 would be worth my fabulous lunch date and I let my aggravation over the ticket fade away. When I got home, I opened the ticket and saw that it was actually for $25 and it was not for letting the meter run out. The ticket was actually for some apparently subpar parallel parking job too far from the curb that was committed by a dread-avoiding, perfection-allowing suburban woman who used to be a star parallel parker. When I saw that ticket it seemed to be the perfect metaphor for the day. What a truly mildly dreadful and hilarious ending to an absolutely perfect day.

Love,

Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC