Shawn Joaquin is a worrier. A fuss-budget. A worry wart. Filled with angst. In constant trepidation, ready for flight at any moment. He must know what happens next and next and next, and then be reassured that the path laid out will indeed be followed and that no danger is involved. While this will most likely ensure his sobriety and cigarette-free high school years, it can be a real bummer in our day-to-day lives. 

This morning I decided to take on the daunting task of shopping at the Mega before work; this was once a great source of joy, but the mile-long walk to get there, the need for extreme focus while selecting any meat or produce, and the Mr. Toad's Wild Ride home in a taxi have taken the shine off my former Mega-love.  A new neighbor had told me that instead of walking down the steep hill on on the gravel and broken glass-covered sidewalk, I could take a path through the chaparral behind our house, as long as I didn't mind the occasional cow patty or, in the gloaming, partiers towards the end of the path near the bridge. At 8am the likelihood of partiers seemed low and the sun high enough to help me avoid any cow gifts. It sounded like the perfect start to the day, until Shawn Joaquin volunteered to come. 

"Why are we going this way? This looks dangerous! Why are you letting me trip? THAT'S NOT THE PATH! THAT'S JUST DIRT! I need to tinkle...no, what if I get it ON MY SHOES? What? There's no bathroom here? WHY NOT? You're fibbing to me, I know it. THAT'S NOT THE WAY! THAT'S NOT THE WAY!"

Madelena's contribution to the walk was simply to trip twice and say, both times, "It's all part of the fun, right mama?"

In the store, Shawn Joaquin worried that someone would take our cart when we put it at the end of the aisle and walked away from it. He worried that I was buying the wrong milk. That the crackers were not the right kind of crackers. That I would forget to buy salami. That we would lose Erika when she went to get the carrots I had forgotten. That the check stand I was going to was not actually open and we would never be able to pay. That the cab that was outside, with no one near it, would be taken by someone else and we wouldn't be able to get home. That I would leave groceries in the cab, as I did a package of chorizo last week. And that I wouldn't have the right change to pay the taxi, and the driver would be angry. 

As my frustration level with the incessant questions and anxiety about everything reach a peak level, I was hit with a thought that had somehow escaped me before: it's very, very hard to be Shawn Joaquin. To live with that worry and to be only six, without the tools to recognize that which should be anxiety producing and that which is merely a different brand of crackers. 

In all my concern about protecting him from other kids and labels and predators, I had failed to think about protecting him from himself...and from me. My sense of adventure and hyper-competence, as it has been called, comes with much less worry about intangibles and a much higher level of risk-tolerance.  His worries are so foreign to me that I have failed to give them their full due, to understand that right now he is no more able to stop those thoughts than he is to breathe.  Instead I answer him with "you're right, we will never get home and will have to live at the Mega" or "if it's the wrong kind of crackers, everyone else will eat them and you can choose to be hungry." My complete lack of empathy (at least after the fifth worry) has done nothing to provide him with the tools he needs now or in the future — I now understand that this is not a phase but as much a part of him as his beautiful dark eyes and incredible loving spirit. 

While Shawn Joaquin excels at worry, I excel at guilt when it comes to my children. This new guilt, however, will drive me to find those tools I need to give him the tools HE needs to best be able to handle the worry...and to know that no matter what, the one thing he never needs to worry about is how much his mother loves him with all her heart. Of that, there is no question.