When Everything Is Fine (And That's the Problem)

Does anyone else get anxiety when things are good?

Give me a trip to labor and delivery almost three months early and I'll be calm as a cucumber — true story — but give me the first summer in three years where I'm not postpartum, pregnant, or actively trying to get pregnant, and I'll be a ball of nerves.

That's kind of where I'm at right now.

I'm happier than I've been in years. My family finally feels complete. It's summer and I live in a beach town. My kids are at ages that are genuinely fun — not "fun because I love them unconditionally" fun, but actually, legitimately fun. And yet, I've been through enough to know that the other shoe can drop at any time.

There's actually a name for this: anticipatory anxiety, the kind that flares not in crisis but in the calm between them. After years of fertility treatments, high-stakes waiting, and pregnancies where you held your breath through every scan, your nervous system starts treating peace like a red flag. The threat didn't change; you just stopped having a reason to white-knuckle it.

Social media doesn't help — it has a way of showing up right when you've let your guard down and reminding you of everything that could go sideways.

But despite all of it, I'm trying to let summer actually be summer, to live in the moment instead of bracing for whatever comes next.

It turns out the hardest thing about finally being okay is trusting yourself to stay there.