A Worried Woman
Wendy Vega

I worry. I worry about the world. It seems as though entropy is beginning to take hold. I worry about all the people, like me, who lost their jobs. I worry about the deadlock between political parties. I worry home buying has become a luxury. I worry that rents are prohibitively high.

I worry that soon I will be like the seniors I drive to their appointments. “I used to walk all over,” they say. Now they are on walkers. It seems to me they had the better generation. Sure, there was the depression, but there was also the 1950s, pensions, health insurance paid, at least in part, by employers and great clothes. No one seems to care about clothes now. People attend the opera in jeans. This worries me.

I worry about all the shootings.

I worry about guns.I worry about bullets, too. I worry how mass shootings have become normal. I worry that people are actually listening to the likes of Trump and Obama is not. Most of us in the country have come from other places. Why is this now a problem? I worry that every time I eat, I am risking my health. I worry there’s too much salt and sugar and fat in my food and body. What’s left?

I worry about myself. I worry how shut off I am. I worry that I spend an unhealthy amount of time with the cats. I worry that I prefer that I am shut off and spending a great deal of time with my cats.

“Hell is other people.” Wasn’t that Sartre? I worry that we are a nation online and that we’d rather have Facebook friends than real ones. I worry that I am one of this nation. I worry that children are left alone more and more alone and not our side playing and engage with other children. I worry that when I see people out to dinner together, they are not together because they are texting other people. I worry about a driver texting will me run down, while I’m in New York City. I worry about other people, texting as they cross the street, being run down because they’re being stupid and not looking where they are going.

I want some of the old ways back.

I want things to get back to the way they were. I want to drink when I’m thirsty. I want to eat cheeseburgers. I want to ride my bike without a helmet. I want to mix television news, as I did for years. I want to earn money and not get it from the state. Where did my job go? Where did your job go? Why does a machine now do my former job?

I want to feel like I’m making a contribution and a living. This is all that I, and so many others, want. How did this become impossible? I worry about how much I worry.