One Easter Sunday morning (April 17, 2022 to be exact), I awoke to the sound of my backyard chickens squawking in distress. I bolted from my bed in a tank top and shorts, no shoes and dashed out the back door, only to be met with a sight that stopped me in my tracks.
There, in the jaws of a fox, was my precious hen Baguette. I screamed and ran toward him with my arms flailing and miraculously, the fox dropped the hen.
I scooped her up and ran to safety and examined her to find no blood, just a hole in her wing where his teeth punctured her. I was so relieved she was okay. The culprit? A breach in the chicken wire, a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities lurking in our everyday safeguards.
The fox returned several times that day, staying a hundred or so feet away. We watched him from the back door. He was beautiful, but lethal. Like a tiger waiting the bushes.
Here on Paper Tigers, we often explore the concept of anxiety as a response to perceived threats—fears that, while daunting, aren't matters of life and death.
Yet, life has a way of reminding us that real and immediate dangers do exist, demanding our full attention and challenging our resilience.
I remember when my husband Jeff started experiencing strange medical symptoms. I kept saying jokingly, “I'll worry about it when I have to,” and was so bound up in my own paper tigers of daily stress and anxiety I missed the big one. Jeff was soon diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Suddenly, our world narrowed to a singular focus: his treatment and recovery. Life, as we knew it, was on pause.
The irony wasn't lost on me. In my efforts to manage the everyday anxieties, I was avoiding the possibility a genuine, life-altering challenge. This experience laid bare a fundamental truth: while we're wired to feel anxious for myriad reasons, it's the manner in which we navigate these emotions that truly counts. More importantly, it underscored the vital role of support, both in the mundane and the monumental.
Anxiety, in its essence, is a survival mechanism, a signal to proceed with caution. But it's crucial to differentiate between the false alarms and the real dangers, the paper tigers and the genuine threats. We have tons of reasons to feel anxious. It's how we manage those feelings that matters and most of all, how we support each other.
I’ve had so many people offer support to me, and continue to do so. It means so much. Let us remember to look out for one another, lending strength and solace in moments of fear and uncertainty.
Whether it's a close call in the backyard or a battle against a horrible illness, the compassion and support we offer can make all the difference. In the end, it's not just about managing our anxieties but about facing life's challenges together, armed with courage and strengthened by our vulnerability and humanness.