Caught catastrophising....again

Tick. Tick. Tick..Tick...Tick....Tick.....Tick......Tick.......Tick............Tick....................Tick.

Time seemed to slow. At every little noise I craned my neck to see if it was him. I walked out to the backyard hoping to see him come in the gate.

The sun was setting, darkness descended. He was always home before dark.

My palms started to sweat. My heart was skipping beats in my chest. I felt physically sick.

Who could I call to find out what time he had left work? Who could I call to find out if there had been an accident? What could I tell the kids?

Yep, I was catastrophising. Something I am very good at, in fact when asked my strengths I should name this one close to the top of the list.

You see, Hubby rides his bike (as in bicycle) to work. Everyday, with the odd exception, he leaves work at 4.30pm and is home by 5.30pm at the latest. On these odd exceptions he tells me that he is leaving late, this is the rule so I don't panic.

Yesterday saw me panicking. Big time.

I tried to calm myself. To tell myself that he was okay, but it wasn't working.

At about 6.15pm, I finally heard the gate and the clip, clop of his shoes on the path. Tears streamed down my face. I looked out the glass doors and saw him, and he saw me. He motioned to me, asking me what was wrong.

I raced outside and in complete irrational fashion shouted, "I have been petrified!".

He replied, "I emailed you babe that I would be leaving late because I got to work late today".

I sobbed, "I didn't get it".

Then, even more irrationally I raced to check my email to prove I never got it and there it was in the Trash folder. The email from Hubby telling me he wouldn't be leaving work late because he had gotten to work late. Clearly I had accidentally deleted it when doing a sweep clean of my inbox.

Thankfully, there was no catastrophe. But there is a new rule, he has to send me a text message when he leaves work.....everyday!

Do you catastrophise things?

or are you cool, calm and collected?