What Does it Mean to Be a Rearview Worrier?

I am a rearview worrier. I don’t fret about things that could go wrong in the future. Instead, I spend my time obsessing about things that might have happened in the past.

I can still see the car that sped through the red light and the intersection when, thankfully, I hesitated a moment before entering. I can still feel the cracked ice and the icy water seeping into my winter boots when I fell through when I was a kid.

My whole memoir is about coming to understand what could have been. I only comprehended the gravity of my own brain tumor after seeing what happened to my dad after he lost much more after his stroke. It’s been 24 years since my tumor was removed and I’m still obsessing about what could have been.

Over the past two weeks I’ve I had my yearly brain MRI and exam with my doctor to ensure my tumor hasn’t returned. This annual appointment always causes me to reflect, but this year, I learned something I never knew.

There is a spot on the scan where they removed the tumor. It appears as a flat grey spot, unlike the white brain matter around it. I’ve always wondered why the spot looked so big, especially since I was told the tumor was only pea-sized. I was only 22 at the time of my surgery and I didn’t pay much attention to what was happening to me, but I imagined they went in and…