I lie awake in bed, with obsessive thoughts scrolling through my head.

It’s been a long two hours of this:

Was I a good mom?

Can we afford the big remodel of the house?

Why didn’t I ever have a career?

When should I have that hip replacement?

Oh my God, when my grandson graduates from college, I’ll be 82.

I wish I had been better about using sunscreen.

Whatever happened to Mike, my boyfriend from high school?

Sleeping pills are a crutch,

maybe,

maybe not.

Does my dog know that I love the cat more than him?

My writing is stupid.

Why don’t I have a yoga practice?

I hate yoga.

How much longer does my dad have?

Will I get to say goodbye to him?

My upper arms look fat.

I should do yoga.

I love yoga.

I think I see a cockroach crawling on the door frame.

Better call pest control tomorrow.

Is it too late to save the planet from global warming?

How can my husband sleep through all of this?

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Anyway, these nattering thoughts unspool, one after the other. And now I need a break, so I get up to get a drink of water.

And after climbing back into bed, the snarled skeins of worry seem to have come loose, and there is space to untangle them.

First off, I can’t undo the sunscreen thing – it’s just too late.

Second, the parenting issue – that’s too late, too.

Also, I may be around to see my grandson graduate, and for that I will be lucky. Let’s hope that happens.

Next, boyfriend Mike definitely broke up with me, so whatever – what a jerk.

And no, I never had a career, it just didn’t happen, get over it. I’m on my path.

And I’ll call my dad tomorrow.

It’s interesting to me that these ghosts periodically haunt me, but usually with the exact same set of grievances. And I can almost hear them coming when they enter the room, they are so familiar.

They come when I feel anxious, or insecure, or overtired.

I’ve tried to meditate them away, but the scripts are baked in. Simply the consequence of an overactive mind.

In A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge faces his mortal demons and becomes enlightened by what he encounters.

After grappling with the years he has wasted, he is finally gifted with a conversion.

I kind of want something like that for me, for some kindly Spirit to guide me through my life and make all things clear.

To absolve things I’ve done wrong, to erase my insecurities.

But really, I am certain that the answers will never come from a ghost. The answers reside within me.

And in the end, I look to the words of the same Charles Dickens, who wrote:

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

And so, I’ll take these words, simple and pre-packaged and ready to absorb into my restless being.

These words are the answer to my questions. They are the answer that helps quiet the late night voices.

They are the answer that soothes me – more than yoga, more than sleeping pills, even more than a talk with my sister.

The answer is easy: the answer is love.