It comes blazing out in those chaotic moments when, looking back, I wonder how I could have been so calm.

I began to notice it a few years ago. Mom reminded me of it this week so I looked at it again. And I still don’t understand.  It makes no sense. Less sense if you know me at all.

I have this annoying tendency to create stress out of nothing. I have no idea why this happens, but it does.

I writhe over incidents in which I am certain I have offended someone, or said something that hurt their feelings. I worry about silly little things like traffic, homework, and getting to clinical on time. I agonize over being misunderstood. I fear that I am shallow, fake, and other useless words. I obsess over running out of gas, or my car breaking down.

Which makes this whole thing even more mysterious.

How can little me, who is known to lie awake for hours, afraid I offended a friend by some insignificant comment, find myself peaceful in the darkest of nights?

 Why is it that,when I actually run out of gas on the freeway, all I can do is laugh?

And why, when the fears seem to come crashing into reality, I have felt, at the very foundation of everything, that it will all be okay?

It is amazing, and wondeful, and oh-how-much-more-than-I-deserve.

 It is deeper than me, I know, 

bigger than fancy coping mechanisms,

more than just magic.

Mom called it Grace.