Worrying is Part of the Job Description.....

I like to think I'm a lot less clingy than the average mom, so it's not in my nature to worry unnecessarily.

Having a child, particularly a daughter, in the military creates its own share of worry, but it also has a tendency to insulate me from the usual parent worries. When she's out at sea and working on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, I don't have to worry about her being in a car accident or some nutcase ambushing her outside her condo. I do have to worry about the trillion or so things that could go wrong while she's launching or recovering a helicopter, though.

Sweet Girl is shore bound for at least the next year, so my level of anxiety has been greatly diminished. She is still doing some risky work with helicopters, but at least she's only in the next state instead of being on the other side of the world.

This weekend, however, she is on leave, and when her trip to Las Vegas fell through, she decided to go to Virginia to see one of her girlfriends from the Navy. I try not to dwell on negative things, but the thought was in the back of my mind all day that she was on the road alone. She has a new car, so I feel pretty confident about that. I just can't help thinking about all the idiots out there on the nation's highways, though, and I worry that something might happen to her through no fault of her own.

She's considerate enough to keep me informed, however, or she's bored out of her mind driving alone, so she calls me frequently enough to put my mind at ease. She called at 6:00 this morning from South Georgia, about 12:00 from somewhere in North Carolina, and around 2:30 to let me know she had arrived safely.

She told me this morning that she had been sick during the night, so of course I worried that she might be coming down with the flu or something. This afternoon she said she had little blood spots in her eyes, probably caused by throwing up. [Sorry for the graphic details.]

Then she sends me this picture on my cell phone:


Sorry, Sweet Girl, but I couldn't resist.

She said it doesn't hurt, and I'm sure it will go away, but that's my cub! [She doesn't really like it when I say that.]

AND she said she left her toiletries case on the kitchen counter, so she's hundreds of miles away from her home with no toothbrush/toothpaste, make-up, etc. There's a Wal-Mart nearby, so that's not a problem, but we moms like to fix these things. I'd like to drive up to Virginia and take her stuff to her. First I'd have to drive to Florida and GET it.

I worry that she won't have enough money, that the hotel isn't clean/safe/pretty/convenient/comfortable, that she won't have a good time, that she will get sick, that she didn't take the proper clothing, that she will run away and join the circus. Oh wait, she already did that. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

She will be driving back home Monday, so that's another day of worrying while she's on the road.

I guess if I weren't worried about her, I would worry that I had nothing to worry about.

Mostly I worry that she doesn't fully understand how proud I am of her.