What a delightful day. This morning I woke up. And whereas that in and of itself would be enough (my dad says any day above ground is a good day), things just got better from there. First, I had a nice, quiet breakfast. Then I mowed the lawn. And not that mowing the lawn is “fun,” but it sort of was. I mean, I had my earplugs in and was grooving, and the sun was shining. I love me some Vitamin D. The only downer is that all the walking/mower pushing aggravated my left ankle, which I apparently pissed off yesterday while running on the treadmill (for an hour). But oh my gosh, you should see the yard. Even Dad says it looks great, and he’s not the easiest man to please.

Is anyone’s father?

After mowing the lawn and getting all nasty, I took a shower. Then Dad came home from running errands and wanted to go to the gym. So I was like–what the hell why not?–and went with him and got gross again. Now I’m even grosser because this evening I went on a short hike with friends and covered myself in bug spray before taking off. Which means I’ll probably take ANOTHER shower before I go to bed tonight. Ugh. A two-shower day. I hate that. There are entire WEEKS I don’t take two showers.

Maybe this is why I’m single.

Last night I made a big production out of the fact that I finished a 1000-piece puzzle and came up short one piece. What I didn’t say was that the puzzle belongs to a friend of mine, so part of my freak-out was not wanting them to be upset that I’d somehow lost a piece. I really got stressed out about it. I thought, What am I going to do? I LOST A PUZZLE PIECE! Granted, most of my brain was all chill, like, This is a cool person, Marcus. They like you. They’re not going to fly off the handle about a little piece of cardboard. But that wasn’t the part of my brain in control. THAT part of my brain scoured the internet last night for all sorts of fix-it options. THAT part of my brain even tried to buy a replacement puzzle from a shady company in China and ended up getting credit card scammed. (Don’t worry, Mom, it’s under control now.)

Geez. That part of my brain is such a sucker.

The one good thing that came out of my searching the web last night is that I ended up contacting and hearing from the manufacturer of the puzzle. (Apparently losing puzzle pieces is a thing, and a lot of companies offer replacement pieces.) Unfortunately, this company no longer makes the puzzle in question (of course they don’t), but they DID offer to send me another one of their 1,000-piece puzzles–get this shit–for free. “Just pick one out, and we’ll be happy to ship it to you,” they said. So I told my friend (the puzzle owner) all this today, and she didn’t fly off the handle at all, didn’t bust my balls in the slightest. “Thank you for going to all the trouble,” she said, and that was that.

Another crisis averted.

This afternoon I got an email from a credit card company. “Your Starbucks SPECIAL OFFER is about to expire,” it said. “Act now so you don’t miss out!” Geez, everything is an emergency. A crisis. Well, in this case, a false crisis. That’s what I was thinking later, that advertisers often approach us as consumers like, The sky is falling, the sky is falling. But–guess what?–it’s not. My point is that I often scare myself shitless doing the same thing, creating a false crisis. My friend is going to be upset. A piece of cardboard is MISSING. The sky is falling. But for crying out loud–settle down, Chicken Little (Marcus Little)–it’s not.

I repeat. The sky is not falling.

More and more, I’m learning that it’s okay to freak out. I mean, it’s going to happen. Even this morning as I was mowing the lawn, my mind would start to get twisted about SOMETHING. (Pick a topic, any topic.) But rather than try to push, push, push my worry or anxiety out of my mind, I tried to include it. This is a technique I’ve learned lately, to expand my awareness. So I’d think about my stress, but then I’d also smell the grass, feel the sun on my skin, and listen to the sound of the mower at the same time. Consequently, it put my problem in perspective. More specifically, it brought it both out of the past and out of the future (which is where all your fantasies live) and into the present moment, where not only is the sky not falling, but all things are–what’s the word?–okay.