What if?

 All through our lives we have 'what if' moments.  When we're pre-teens they can actually turn in to night mares.  Panicky ones like forgetting your locker combination or your class schedule or really embarrassing ones like showing up at school in your pajamas (although that doesn't seem to bother people these days) or worse, naked.  Gradually we mature and these what ifs are replaced by real life concerns like keeping a job and paying the mortgage.  But every once in a while a sneaky question pops into a person's mind like "What if I give a party and no one comes?"  That actually never happened to me but I do remember wondering sometimes, just before people were scheduled to arrive, if anyone would show up.  But that was years ago and now that I'm, gasp, past (make that way past) middle age, different concerns pop up.  Well not so different actually.  Today, for example, I went to a meeting at church.  It was a meeting of a yarn group that I belong too.  Some people knit, some crochet, some do craft work, I weave, and we all share our joys and concerns.  It's a very nice group and today's was to be the second time we have met since the church opened up for meetings again. It was scheduled to start at 3:00pm and I arrived at 2:55.  No lights had been turned on in our meeting room and I was the first one there.  No concern, I've been first there before.  So I set up my loom and got to work on a new project.  Time passed, about ten minutes, and finally one other person showed up, just as I was beginning to wonder, you know, if I was there on the wrong day, and it was good to see her, but since I had called her yesterday to remind her about the meeting, day and time, I wasn't really reassured.  What if I had the wrong day and time and had misinformed her?  We chatted amiably but after twenty more minutes passed I was really starting to wonder.  I'm on a group text with most of the people who come to this group so I sent out a text "Where is everyone?"  And the excuses started to come in - stuck in another meeting, running late, not feeling well, and so it went.  At least I knew I had the right day.  Even though this technically wasn't my party, I was feeling stood up.  Finally, 45 minutes into the meeting two more people showed up and we four had a good time.  And I came away feeling that I hadn't totally messed up.  Shades of junior high.