When my oldest started preschool, his teacher taught me an invaluable lesson. If she had to call me for some reason, she always began the phone conversation with, “Let me start by saying everything’s fine.” She knew that getting a call from “the school” in the middle of the day would make most parents fear the worst – high fever, broken bone, biting incident, etc. She was brilliant and I’ve incorporated her tactic into my own life, when hard conversations have to happen or phone calls occur at odd hours.

In retrospect, I should’ve included this phrase at the beginning of my last post, where I referenced vague health concerns and frustration with life spent in limbo. Sorry about that. Everything’s fine.

The Reader’s Digest version: I’ve reached the age where quirky things happen to your body, requiring thorough testing and conversations about worst case scenarios. My female organs began behaving oddly last February, culminating in outpatient surgery last month that gave me no answers, but disproved the scariest theories. Meanwhile, my eyes have developed vitreomacular traction – a temporary blurry spot in the center of my vision – making everything from emails to embroidery a challenge. Follow up appointments with my ophthalmologist make it appear this will clear up on its own, but, like so many things, it’s just going to take time. Then life added its usual assortment of challenges – car, home, finances, parenting – all while I’ve been trying a new form of treatment for my depression (which I’ll write about soon).

I choose to believe everything’s fine, because, if nothing else, I stayed upright during all of this, but I know it’s worrisome when I go too long without writing. After I posted yesterday (my first post since early May) a friend commented (and I’m paraphrasing), “I know if you’re writing you’re okay.” It reminded me of my first job after college, working in radio in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. My mother told me once that it made her feel better knowing she could turn on the radio every afternoon and hear my voice (remember: this was before cell phones or internet). Despite the fact that sometimes my writing is dark, people who care about me know on some level I’m fine if I have the energy/desire to write.

But what would my life look like if I replaced the if with when? So instead of waiting until I feel like writing, I remember that when I’m writing, I’m okay. I fear the result might be a lot of navel gazing. But maybe not or maybe more time spent writing would silence the internal editor who worries about such things. I guess we’ll see, since I intend to test this theory and have put that intent out into the universe (or at least in front of the handful of friends who read this).

Just keep reminding me, no matter what I write, everything’s fine because I’m writing.