Essay in which I overthink about what I have no control over so I think / and think / and think

No one can guarantee that I won’t lose another home to a fire even if I check and check again that the stove is off every time I go out / even if I unplug everything that doesn’t need to be plugged in at night like the air freshener I keep in the living room, or the microwave when I can’t rinse away the end-of-the-world type of feelings that sometimes visit me at night / and on those nights, paranoid, awake, no one can guarantee that no one will break into my apartment / pummel down the front door, chain and all / shatter the window in my bedroom that is too close to my bed and too large, too easy to jump in and out of / on those nights I triple check that I have all three locks on the front door / sometimes I wake up just to go check the door is locked / and when extra paranoid I press a chair or a heavy box of books up against my bedroom door so that I can at least hear as the intruder breaks into my room, so that they struggle for a second / and for that second I can pretend I am brave enough to run or fight back / though I am not strong / I know I’m not.

All this to say that lack of control terrifies me. It exhausts my mind and body when I can’t anticipate if something bad will happen. Or when it will happen because my mind usually assumes all the bad it imagines will be real / there is no if / it’s all a matter of when it will happen / we were as careful as we could be and we still lost our home to a fire because we had no way of knowing that our TV service provider had done a bad job of setting up the wiring outside of our home / all it took was a couple years of wear and tear and some rain-snow to create a spark.

I like folding origami aliens because I’ve been folding them for years. I know what mistakes to avoid. I know when an alien is going to tear. I know when to give up, and sometimes I convince myself that knowing when to give up is what I need. Though reimagine with me, toss out the negativity: I like folding origami aliens because I know how to work with my mistakes. I have control over the paper. Step-by-step, I can anticipate what my folding is leading to. There is no surprise, though yes, I will sometimes mess up and some origami aliens will be imperfect. Some will struggle to stand once completed, but even if they wobble, so long as they stand is what should matter. I succeeded. I didn’t have to give up. I am okay.