James and I had a little squabble last night that turned into me freaking out about him dying.

Sounds like fun, huh?

The weird thing is that book I was reading totally predicted it: One of the things women have to deal with during the engagement period is the fear that their partner will die or leave in some other way.

I trust James completely as far as faithfulness goes, so I’m freaking out about him dying.

And I’m not even freaking out about some random accident happening tomorrow. No, I’m freaking out that he’ll get heart disease at some point in the future (30 years? 40? 50?).

And I know it’s completely irrational. Okay, not completely. A lot of American men have heart disease. It really could happen to him. But why am I worrying about it now?

After I closed Harry Potter and turned out the light last night, I was gripped by this fear, this worry. As if it gained strength from the darkness and the quiet sound of James’s breath.

I was able to sleep, but my dreams were filled with anxiety.

Right now, the scariest thing about marriage is that it ties you so closely to another person over whom you have so little control. And I don’t mean control over what he does or where he goes. I have no control over what happens to him.

My own death doesn’t frighten me at all compared to how scared I am of James dying.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 3:33 pm and is filed under engagement, home life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.