The old anxiety has returned.

It had subsided or maybe lain dormant for many months or maybe even years. But it reemerged earlier this year.

A few months ago, when I first noticed its sharp edge, it had been because of work. I remember sitting in a noisy, crowded bar, shouting to be heard, and feeling a conscious effort to push it - the anxiety - down back inside me. It was centered in my stomach and it threatened to expand up like a menace, up through each of my arms and legs, and out through my throat with a terrified moan.

We were at a table watching a game on the bigscreen, the Colts in the playoffs, and I was seated next to someone I had never met. She was pretty and had gone to high school with one of our friends. She worked for a congressman in his home-district office, a Republican, and I tried to be distracted - tried to distract the anxiety - while she told me she was sad at being associated with the Party of No.

"The Democrats were no different," she had said, "they made blocked everything Republican during the Bush years."

I told her about the anxiety then, the feeling I was moments away from a full-fledged panic attack. "I'm scheduled into a meeting tomorrow, to discuss staff raises. I will need to defend why I chose to give raises to certain members of my team and my boss will not be there."

"Your boss is not going to be there to support you," she had said, this stranger, and I thought: It will be the end of my career.

Since then so much has happened. Was it the end of my career? There was a reorganization and I had to apply for my old job. I didn't get it but was offered two other jobs. A 20% paycut. It's been almost two months into learning the role I accepted and one I never would have chosen if left to my own.

I had to watch my old job, a chapter of my life, float away. A slow separating of myself from the team, like removing pieces of a tightly-packed wood crate with a crowbar, the nails screaching as they came loose.

I made everyone ready: I held individual meetings, with each of the 24, to go over performance to date and to reassure and calm by sounding assured and calm. Is this what you do when you've hit an iceburg? Everything will be alright. There is a role for everyone; there is a role for you.

But was I ready myself? The dark weight in my stomach was somehow held at bay.

It is still being held at bay. Here I am, in M-, a place so serenely beautiful I sometimes wonder if it's a dream. There is no heat wave but a gentle breeze. There is a choice of overlooking the lake or the bay, and only the sounds of distant boat engines or indistinct conversations. When there is a breeze, the leaves shimmy and sigh, and you can hear the chimes. In the early evenings, you can hear the birds calling.

Bad news is from another planet. Floods in Pakistan and China, forest fires in Russia. There is no hint of hard times when I walk into town and fade among the brightly-colored waddling pigs and hens.

The dark feeling sinks and congeals. If I'm still, can I feel its mestastasis? A day, one day, when it will be too late and I will be gone.