Clobbering the Whatifs

I had strict parents and I went to strict schools. I remember waking up one morning when I was, I suppose, about eleven and thinking, ‘Every day there’s something to dread.’

That way of thinking has stuck with me, even though there’s nothing to dread any more except life itself and what ‘might happen’.

Frog’s mother gave me a lovely book once called A Light in the Attic. It’s a collection of children’s poems by Shel Silverstein, one of which goes as follows. (I won’t quote all of it because that’s not fair to the author or his descendants.)

Last night, while I lay thinking here,

Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear

And pranced and partied all night long

And sang their same old Whatif song:

Whatif I’m dumb in school?

Whatif they’ve closed the swimming pool

. . .

Whatif I start to cry?

Whatif I get sick and die?

Whatif I flunk that test?

Whatif green hair grows on my chest?

. . .

Whatif I tear my pants?

Whatif I never learn to dance?

Everything seems swell, and then

The nighttime Whatifs strike again!

Fiction-writing is my way of clobbering the Whatifs. I drown them out. I replace horrible possibilities with nice ones. Which is why it's so painful when I'm stuck, as now. I shall just have to laugh at the Whatifs instead, like Shel.