Your Dad Was a Nervous Nelly

The other day I had someone that knew my dad tell me (jokingly), "Your dad was a nervous Nelly." It was funny because it was true. Strange thing is, I never would've thought anyone else noticed if he hadn't brought it up. Don't get me wrong - he's stronger than me in some ways. He spoke in front of large groups easily all his life and he was skilled in the martial arts when he was younger. He still has some self-esteem issues with caring about what others think a little too much, but that seems to be the way of the world now.

He mainly worries about the kind of stuff that we have no control over. The kind of stuff that could happen to anyone at anytime - like losing a job, getting sick, or someone in his family being in a car accident. Just because these are all possibilities doesn't mean that if you worry about them that they will not happen. He had the tendency to avoid confrontation due to worrying about upsetting someone, but then would sometimes explode over the smallest things.

He worries about stuff that most of us don't even think about. Perhaps it's the police background but it borders on ridiculous - "You kill those weeds with gas and what happens if someone throws their cigarette there?" The question makes some since but the odds of that happening in a time period where it would be flammable enough to burn my house down would be comical. And who is this strange smoking man standing a foot away from my house while I'm not there? Don't get me wrong, I don't make a habit out of killing grass with gasoline. This was on a patch of grass because I'd run out of Roundup. His mother, my grandmother, was even worse - so I can see where he got the worrying from. And now one of my daughters (who has the same type of worries as my father) - so, 4 generations of anxiety in a 50 year span. Thanks genetics.