I'm a worrier and a warrior

I have been on a hen do, with some lovely women, each of us have been through trials and tribulations. None of us are coming out of this unscathed. As we get older the more events happen that shape us and more define moments too. 

We talked a lot, us women, about the way marriage is a task. It's often hard work. I feel a little for the hen, but she took our wisdom in good grace, saw that each of us married ones have been through the ups and downs and she knows. She is not daft. There is not fairy-tale ending. 

My husband has helped me with what I know is a life long affliction of being a worrier. As I woke next to a woman I have never spent an evening with let alone a bed with we talked about how we slept. Badly, of course, different bed and too much alcohol. I told her about my habit of worrying and it's mostly a voice that hits me hardest in the small hours of the morning. 

As I explained this, the ways I deal with it, the self doubt, the nastiness my voice can be and how I have tamed her, I was able to see three things and slightly articulated them. 

1. I've always done it as long as I can remember, my parents would try to help me, a worry book by my bed to write them in, the letters I would leave on their pillows so I could get it out of my head. 

2. It makes sense to be a worrier when you know from before you even know it that your dad has a disease that gives him brain tumours (I was less aware of the others) and that you and your brother probably have that too. Having annual check ups, clinic appointments and then the scans, annual results. They did a good job of underplaying it, of making a family joke of the massive bottles of piss we collected for 24 hours once a year in our bathroom. The Dr that once checked if I had pubic hair by simply pulling my knickers down a bit while I lay on a bed. The change to a big hospital, Addenbrookes when a specialist was found. The eye scans of old, the yellow glow of skin and piss. The journey back through East Anglia, back to the coast with the words ringing in your head, angioma, pheochromocytoma, hemangioblastoma. Surgery, monitor, growth, tumour, cyst, partial nephrectomy  and never really knowing the difference between them all until you then do. 

3. My husband has helped me worry less, talking it through, refocusing, allowing me to fear the worst and then concentrate on the likely and the hopeful. 

and as I reflect on that now I see a 4th.

4. I am a warrior