Sleep on It
My first grader recently learned about tiny Guatemalan Worry Dolls via his new teacher who gave each of her students one. I remember having these as a child, too, how I would whisper my worry to them, place them under my pillow, then let the little dolls work it out for me as I slept.
I didn’t think much of it when my son showed it to me one day. I may have had a simple smile, thinking back to that moment in my youth. I simply forgot about it and moved on.
A week or so later, the trouble that had been brewing at work began to boil. Turns out it’s time to shuffle the old deck again. As a restructure looms, so swirl the conclusions. Will they or won’t they? Stay or go? Me or my coworkers?
I was changing my son’s bed sheets around that time, and when I picked up his pillow to remove the case, I saw a little figurine.
“What’s that?” I said.
“A worry doll,” he said. “Do you have any worries? You can tell them to the doll.”
His simple question and earnest offer snapped me back reality. What is there to worry about, really? When I agonize over something, I hold it in. I become the Worry Doll itself, but instead of being small, I grow and my preoccupations start branching into all corners of my life.
When this happens, and when I’m finally able to express myself, my wife does what she does best: she reminds me with a deft sweetness that everything eventually works out.
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