How do you deal with anxiety

[Au Naturel]

Most of what we did as kids is horrifying to our grandchildren who are now becoming parents.
We had freedoms that our little greats cannot imagine. Mom would put us out on Saturday after breakfast and say don't come back til dinnertime. We had bikes and 18 kids on our block with the same freedoms, a poison-ivy-infested park at the end of the street, and many square miles to roam. All the mothers kept an eye on every other one, and whatever you did today, Mom knew before you got home and you might not have dinner after all.

It isn't safe in my city for children to play outside unsupervised, even in fenced backyard.
Makes me sad for them, their lives are so much smaller and narrower.

Pawpaw made a boat from a #3 washtub and tractor tire inner tube, put it in the creek behind their house, and floated 7 miles down to the river. He was 8 years old, gone all day, had a great time. His Dad knew but never told his Mom

The inner tube thing reminded me of my tweens and early teens. We lived on 80 acres, mostly forest. Some of it was abandoned field and orchard returning to a wild state. The properties surrounding us were no different. Given the lack of fencing, if you went far enough, you'd never know whose property you were on. A river ran through it, and there was an extremely faint game trail alongside it. I'd get an inner tube with a canvas cover and float downstream (naked, of course!) until almost where it was crossed by a bridge, which would be about a mile, then turn around and walk back to my clothes. Depending on how hot the day was, rinse and repeat.

In June and July, we might have 16 hours of daylight, but by late July the water level was too low. You'd spend most of your time walking the shallows. Which is okay in itself, but the whole idea was to float and watch the world go by.

I had almost no supervision over the summer months. There might be one or two farm houses over a mile stretch of gravel road. Father worked in a factory 50 miles away and my mother couldn't be bothered. Made sure nobody ever found out what I was up to.