Slogans and night fears

Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and gasp, "I forgot to --?"

Or, if that isn't the question maybe it is, "Did I remember to --?" Sleep disappears the instant you ask the question and you begin to think of all the dire scenarios that will occur if you don't get whatever it was taken care of immediately.

Since it is the middle of the night you can't do much about it except fret.

I often plan what I will do in the morning as soon as business hours, or decent waking times have come.

I have tried to leave a pad by my bed to jot down these reminders, but often after I have jotted down the lists, I carry the pad somewhere else with me in the morning and many nights I am left listless. I often write on the side of the bedside tissue box, or on the edge of the crossword puzzle I was working before going to sleep. This sometimes relaxes me enough that I can sleep.

In the morning when I face this problem again, it usually doesn't seem as dire as it did in the middle of the night. If I am lucky maybe I can find out that I really did carry out the duty, or maybe find that it wasn't necessary after all.

I envy those people who are either so organized that this never happens to them, or who have the mind-set that someone else can take care of that for me.

I have often mentioned a cross-stitch slogan that I have hanging on the wall of my office. A member of a Sunday school class I taught made it for me.

In the class I told about a slogan that a former boss had on the wall of her office. Each time I went in to her desk for any reason I would look at this slogan. At first I thought it was a very presumptuous statement. Later I began to see its importance.

I told the class that when the boss left for another position she left the slogan on the wall and I inherited it. I kept it for years, but in our last move it disappeared somewhere. This special friend created it anew for me and it is again on my wall.

The slogan is, "If it is to be it's up to me."

When I thought it was a conceited statement I thought Mary Zee was thinking that no one could do anything as well as she could.

However, I later realized that was not the meaning. I decided the true thought is that if you care about something, you have to take action. You can't wait for someone else to do it for you.

The saying, "Let George do it," doesn't get much results unless George is a superman. In fact I am trying to remember the Georges I have known. Not many of them have the abilities to take care of all the problems of the world. So, if it is to be, it's up to me.

I hope someone will join in with me on whatever task it is, but my slogan won't let me just sit back and do nothing.

There is one big exception however. Since reaching middle age plus I have found that many of things that seemed so important really aren't. I have a note pad that has the caption at the top, along with a picture of a disheveled Maxine, "In a hundred years it won't matter, it barely matters now!"

Tonight if I wake up fearful that I have left something undone, I can ponder the two sayings. Maybe Maxine has the best answer unless it really matters!