Don't panic

I woke up at 4:30 this morning, my head full of terrible thoughts. "Oh God, I'm making a mistake. The house is too big. It's going to be too hot. The old dog will suffer. There's no way I can put a swamp cooler on the steep roof. There's no convenient place for an air conditioning unit that's out of sight, especially since there are two furnaces and hence two sets of ducts. The stairs are too steep. The old dog is going to fall down them. I won't be able to do all the maintenance I now can do myself. There's no place to put X. There's no place to put Y. The dog is going to be upset. She's going to die and it will be my fault. What the hell am I doing?"

I tossed. I turned. I told myself, "It's 4:30 a.m. and problems always seem 10 times worse in the middle of the night. You'll be fine in the morning."

I went back to sleep. I had a dream I was looking at the house again. I discovered a big mushy spot in the kitchen floor. A workman told me, "Oh, that's nothing. Old house, you know." I looked up: big bulge in the ceiling. "Nothing. No problem," said the workman. I started cleaning, discovered water running down the wall. The workman came in. "You've got a problem."

Panic! Must turn off water main. Run down the (previously unnoticed) back stairs to the (now surprisingly large and finished) basement. There are two children there, playing. They are the current owners' kids. I'm trying to call Mom on my cellphone to tell her to come watch the kids while I open the trapdoor to the subbasement. The cellphone refuses to cooperate. I get into the subbasement, discover the valve on the water main is broken. There's water gushing from it.

I woke up.

It was 6:30. I called Mom. She talked me down.

Now it's almost 8. I feel a little better. But tired.