I've Learned.....

.......that things always seem a lot worse in the middle of the night. I tend to over think things, and worry way too much about things. I have had many sleepless nights, that have been spent worrying about this or that. As soon as something of concern enters my thoughts in the night I am pretty much doomed. I will lay there and think about it, and stress about it, and hours will go by. Well this happened last night. Brandon has been in Montana for a little over a week working. We talk on the phone several times throughout the day. He always calls right before bed to say goodnight. When we got home from the girls musical theatre class last night Alexis tried calling him to tell him about her solo that she had done that night. He didn't answer. I didn't think much of this, and we went about our normal bedtime routine, and then I went to bed myself. About 4:00 in the morning I awoke in a panic. I realized that I had not talked to Brandon since 2:30 the afternoon before. I quickly checked my phone to see if I had any missed calls, and Ihadn't. I then called Brandon (yes at 4:00 in the morning). He didn't answer. I called his Montana cell phone number. He didn't answer. I tried not to think anything of it and tried to go back to sleep. Yeah right. About 10 minutes later I called both numbers again. Surely he would hear his phone!! No answer. This is when my thoughts began to go crazy. Some of my thoughts were:

~Is he stranded on the side of the road somewhere?
~Is he unconscience in the hospital, and they don't know who to call and notify? (he just got a cell phone for Montana and doesn't have any numbers saved in it)
~Is Duane (the friend he is staying with down there) afraid to call and tell me something terrible has happened?
~Should I call my mom?
~Is he still alive?
~How could I ever plan his funeral?
~What was the last thing we said to each other?
~How long should I wait before calling family and telling them that I couldn't get a hold of Brandon.
~How could I be a single mom?

Yeah, you get the gist of it. Crazy I know. I prayed and prayed that he would call, and that I would know if he was ok. This went on for hours. Finally at around 6 am when the sun started to come out I had a thought.

~ He probably left his cell phone in his car, got distracted talking to Duane and went to bed without even thinking about it.

Why this thought didn't occur to me hours ago is beyond me. As soon as I had this thought I felt fine and fell asleep. (until my alarm went of at 6:45) Around 7, Brandon called. He had awoken to realize he didn't have his phone, and hadn't called me the night before. He ran out to his car, found his phone, saw all the missed calls, and called me right away. "I was writing your eulogy in my head!!" I told him, to which he chuckled but the quickly realized I wasn't kidding.

Now, this brings me to the lesson of this all. Things always seem better in the morning. I don't know why the dark hours of the night always bring out the worry wart in me. As soon as the sun started to rise I had such a clearer rationalization of it, and could hardly even believe I had been so worried. I hope this will be a lesson to me when I wake up on future nights (which I am sure I will)

In my defense though, anyone who know Brandon knows that he always calls!! LOL