Worry wart

For those of you who don't know my dirty little secret, I'm about to out it to the Internet as a whole -- or the few of you who stop by here each day. ::deep breath:: I'm a worry wart. I've never met an anxiety attack I've not embraced and cuddled. In fact, worrying is such a state of being for me that if I'm not worried, I immediately find the small molehole possible and turn it into a mountain. Then I fixate, until I'm so paralyzed by my own fears that I find it exceedingly difficult to relax or make a decision or do anything that will distract me.

I confide this to you because currently I'm at work. Yes, on a beautiful Saturday at a time when I'd planned to go for a walk in the park near my apartment. I'm here because I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and couldn't go back to sleep, despite my eye-lids being very heavy and my body being dead tired and sore (Oh yes, I forgot to mention -- I fell down some stairs Friday at lunch, and so now I'm worrying about whether I'll be one big bruise or not). The reason? I could not remember if I had checked one little thing at the end of the day.

Now, this little thing isn't really that little. It has to do with dates and if any dates are wrong, then that messes up the database and guess what? We re-run the whole thing in Tuesday's issue and management will be very, very, very upset with me. And I couldn't remember, for the life of me, in all of the Friday panic, whether I had checked the dates or not. Now, keep in mind that we rarely have a date problem any more here at Very Big Publishing Company (tm) because of our lovely macros. But it was the weekend and if we were going to have a date problem, it would be the weekend when the dates are all messed up.

So finally, I decided I had to come in to work so I could check on the dates. Keep in mind that there is nothing I can do if there is indeed a date problem, but I needed to know so I could enjoy the rest of my weekend or prepare for doom on Monday. So now that I checked, I can rest somewhat -- the dates were fine, all the data got in just fine and calculated just fine. However, that doesn't mean we're completely scot-free and that I cannot know until Monday.

So now, my anxiety level has come down several decibels and I'll be able to relax somewhat until the next thing comes along.