Every day I check my email and the headlines of my daily newspaper. I might even venture online for some news. As I read the messages from friends and family, and articles written by those I’ve never met, I find myself driven to put together pieces of a puzzle for that day. I do this for reasons I can’t say – because I don’t know why I do this.

I suppose it is my own feeble attempt to make sense of things, to somehow read the great barometer that is this life in this world, so that I may act and react accordingly and appropriately. The trouble is, I’m not getting every report and reading. Then again, I shudder to think what madness would ensue if I did.

There came a day not too long ago when every other message and article had something to do with security and feeling secure. The randomness of this theme was vexing and relentless. I wanted badly to shake it off and move on, but I just couldn’t seem to make it happen.

About the same time, I had a bad dream about my husband of 18 years. In my dream, he’d unapologetically taken up with the neighbor lady and was going to run off with her in a blaze of infatuated glory. I would later realize the dream was more about me: I was the other woman in the form of some significant progress we’ve made in our marriage lately. In some ways I was still holding on to patterns and habits that just weren’t working. My perception was that he loved our new ways of doing things - at the expense of who we, specifically I, used to be.

It wasn’t about who I was, though, as much as it was about what I used to do. When I let go of the need to do things that weren’t working (they were more familiar, thus comfortable) and focused on the stuff that was working (they were unfamiliar and a little uncomfortable), things got better. It was, however, a winding road.

Instead of bringing up my initial anxiety to my husband directly, I cleverly disguised it with a discussion about our household budget. I say “cleverly,” but anyone who has taken at least one psychology class knows it would be more accurate of me to say I was pathetically indirect.

There it was. I was feeling insecure, if not threatened – something money cannot fix. This feeling of insecurity was tapping into my every past anxiety of the same ilk. I just could not shake it.