Today was Candyce’s family’s last full day in Arizona before they drive back to California.;Danny is staying here because he’s about to start his freshman year of college. That means there will be just four kids in the house that used to be packed with seven. I even think Lauryn and Carrie might get their own bedroom for this school year.

I know how much is sucks to know that school is starting when you are a kid, so I tried to make today real fun for Matt and Carrie by inviting them over to play in the pool. It’s fun to play with little kids because all they want to do is have fun with me. It’s so freeing to know that all I have to do is make them feel good about themselves. I was excited about their games, their jumps off the diving board, and their underwater adventures. Nothing else mattered.

I can’t forget that most of my anxieties come from my success. Anxieties about bills, investments, job opportunities—all of these are the concerns of someone who is in a good place. My college loans are paid off. I’m in good health and have no medical bills. I’m not in any life-sucking lawsuits or legal troubles. I’m not tangled in a drug or alcohol addiction. No run-ins with the mafia either. I’m not paying the ransom for a kidnapped family member.

I think of all of the violence and unrest in other societies throughout the world. Families don’t know if they will be alive at the end of the day. Wondering how to pay a high electric bill would be a true blessing, because that would mean that they had a house in a community with infrastructure. It would mean that their currency was worth something. Plus, you need electricity because you have things you need to operate. Paying an electric bill is privilege.

I have anxiety about keeping up with all that’s going on around me because I do have a lot going on in life. This is an absolute contrast to the my life when as I was growing up in a small town. Then my worries were wrapped up in the feeling that the rest of the world was moving on without me. Now I’m apart of that world that is moving, and I just have to be man enough to deal with it.