Waiting for the other shoe to drop

My husband generally gets home from work every day at around 7 p.m. (note the “generally” and “around”). However, by 7:03 p.m. every day, I am convinced he was mugged. Or had an aneurysm. Or got hit by a car and is lying in a ditch somewhere. Or was a victim of a sadistic serial killer named Meat Claw.

Or actually finally did meet Keira Knightley, who agreed to run off with him to Aruba (which, per our informal pre-nup, is permissible… by the same token, Ryan Reynolds, if you happen to be reading this, my husband is completely OK with us running off to Puerto Rico together… just throwing that out there, buddy).

I haven’t always been this way (the crazed, worried wife, not the crazed, Ryan Reynolds stalker… the latter has been going on for years).

In fact, this constant worrying has only been going on for about a month, which not-so-coincidentally, is how long we’ve been in Boston.

But it’s not for the reason you think.

I love it here. Every day is, in the words of the common vernacular, a wicked awesome adventure. I find myself constantly getting inspired in terms of my writing and photography, and I’ve finally achieved my dream of becoming a syndicated columnist (granted, writing for one newspaper is a pretty broad definition of the term “syndicated,” but I’ll take what I can get). I also now have my own website, something else I’ve always wanted to do.

My husband loves it here possibly even more and his new job working at the Boston Globe. He’s working fewer hours, too, which means we have more time as a couple to explore the city (and stalk Boston-bred celebrities like Mark Wahlberg).

And we are now finally financially secure enough that we don’t have to live paycheck to paycheck anymore, a lifestyle we’ve been accustom to since our days as pimply-faced teenagers working the fryer.

We just found a perfect apartment, located in a great neighborhood, right by a park with a river running through it (complete with three bedrooms, huge kitchen, two porches and a driveway, all of which is usually downright impossible to find in our price range in a big city).

And to top it all off, I’ve been losing weight without even trying, mostly thanks to the fact I walk everywhere since I’m terrified of attempting to drive here.

We’ve never been happier. Even our freaking dog seems happier.

Hate me yet? I know! I totally would, too!

It’s just all too much. All too good to be true.

Which is why I am constantly worried something bad is going to happen. I mean, the other shoe has to drop soon, right? No one gets everything they’ve ever wanted, do they? Maybe even a better question is, do we truly deserve all this good fortune that has befallen us?

Oh sure, we’re good people. We adopt rescued animals, are above-average tippers and recycle if given the chance (and by “if given the chance” I mean if a recycling bin is in my direct walking path at the very moment I finish my soda).

But we’re by no means saints. When asked at the gas station if I’d like to donate a dollar to help one-legged orphans with lupus in Kurdistan, I usually decline. I judge people who wear fanny packs. And the two times I actually remembered to bring our cloth grocery bags doesn’t mean much when you think of the 7,843 times I forgot and just went with plastic.

And so, I sit here waiting for some disaster to happen, like getting burglarized by a shoe thief.

But hopefully, after awhile, when my husband never does get mauled by a rabid pit bull, or I never end up spontaneously going blind, I’ll learn to just enjoy our new life and realize it’s a waste of time worrying about things I can’t control.

Until then, however, I’m going to try to be a better person (like, for instance, one that doesn’t take a penny with no intention of ever leaving a penny). You know, just to try and balance the karmic scales.