worry

I used to worry excessively, obsessively even, about myself. I was crippled by hypochondria, by worries about what would happen in the near and distant future, worries about poverty, about looming but invisible tragedies. Now I no longer worry about such things. Once I was treated for my bipolar illness, the obsessive worrying slowly diminished and freed a part of me and I was desperately grateful for that. But now I still worry, only my worries are external ones. I worry about my friends and family. I worry that someone dear to me is in pain, is lonely, is jolted awake in the middle of the night by fear, is crying in secret from some terrible sadness. I guess it is natural to want to protect others from pain or sorrow, even if it is impossible. Maybe I should have been a woman, because isn't what I am describing really a maternal instinct? Or is it a genderless instinct?