As you know, it’s been a dry fall, although recent rains have helped.
Still, the vast majority of days over the last three months have been rain-free, which has increased the risk of wildfires. As recently as a couple of weeks ago, several wildfire outbreaks were being reported in the Cherokee National Forest and in Marion County, where one blaze spread over more than 100 acres.
As I get older, I notice that my worry list is getting longer and longer, and 2023 is the year I added wildfires to my official list of “scary stuff that probably won’t happen to me, but could.” Our house is on a wooded lot adjacent to a patch of mountain forest and so it doesn’t take much these days to set off my mental fire alarm.
Until now, I’d always felt good about our chances of dodging climate change. If the temperature rises a few degrees, who cares? At altitude, a couple of degrees plus or minus is negligible. And it would take a Noah-style flood to reach our doorstep. Too, the remnants of hurricanes generally lose steam before they reach us here in Appalachia.
(READ MORE: Worsening warming is hurting people in all regions, US climate assessment shows)
But there has been something about the recent dry weather that has put me on edge. At one point, we were 9.5 inches behind in yearly rainfall and blowing leaves whipped up billowing clouds of dust. The fallen leaves themselves felt as thin as parchment paper and one could imagine a fire spreading quickly on a forest floor filled with this dehydrated foliage.
I found myself looking for 10-day forecasts online hoping to see, say, a 40% chance of rain next Tuesday. Time after time, long-range rain predictions came and went without a single drop of precipitation.
But then the rains finally came, as they always do, and I put my drought worry back in a box, like a Christmas ornament being repacked and returned to the attic for another year.
[READ MORE: Rain helps with Chattanooga area wildfires but not with drought.]
In the meantime, I’m sensing a pattern. As I get older, my mind seems to be searching for things to worry about. I’m wondering if this is a normal part of the aging process.
I remember when I was a kid that my maternal grandmother — we called her Munner — was extremely worried about her water pipes freezing and bursting in the wintertime. It probably wasn’t an unreasonable fear. She lived in a 100-year-old Victorian-style home, and some of the plumbing was actually outside the foundation of the house.
Still, as she reached her 80s, Munner would check the pipe insulation several times a day and fret endlessly about the possibility of a catastrophic leak.
Among my (perhaps) irrational worries these days: That my laptop will die and take all my passwords with it to the digital afterlife. That I’ll forget to put a return-address sticker on my power bill. That the glue on my eyeglasses will give way and I’ll need another pair just as Christmas bills start piling up.
I’m starting to think it’s not that older people have more worries; it’s that we have different ones.
[READ MORE: I’m a worry-wart parent, and it worries me.]
I did some research about it on WebMD, which said: “Having more anxiety as you age is a common issue in older adults. The most common types of anxiety disorders are: generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). This type of anxiety causes racing thoughts, constant worrying and a feeling of hopelessness.”
That’s not me. My thoughts don’t race, they amble, and I feel more hapless than hopeless.
So, I guess my worries are just me being me, not my brain getting old.
Meanwhile, I’m sitting on the front porch, listening to the rain and I feel oddly comforted.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.