Thinkers are sinkers, that's what I always say.

All right, well, I don't always say it, but I just did, and it's definitely true.

Thinkers are sinkers, and you can trust me on that, because as a wise fourth grader once said, it takes one to know one.

Thinkers are sinkers, and often they're drinkers, too.

They're sinkers (and sometimes drinkers) because it's tough to tread water up there in a thinker's noggin, swirling around with all the waves of worries and bad memories and nightmares just waiting to come true.

I've never had the calm reserve, the "je ne donne pas un merde" to still the thinker's waves.

My Granny Phyllis, though, had it in spades. She lived to the ripe old age of 97, brow untroubled, as mild as a lamb. She used to drink coffee all day, making a pot in the morning and having her last microwaved cup at 11 p.m. Can you imagine drinking a cup of caffeinated coffee at 11 p.m.? I'd be awake until Labor Day, eyes darting around my darkened bedroom like a trapped rat's, watching the numbers slowly climb on my clock and imagining all manner of doom.

Being inside my grandmother's head must have been like floating on an inner tube down a lazy river. Mine is more like white-knuckling it in a barrel through the Colorado rapids after a storm.

But that's because I'm a thinker. And that's what thinkers do. We don't think our thoughts; we battle them, like sailors battling a treacherous sea. And as with waves in an ocean, those thoughts can be powerful, insistent, motivated.

Thinkers' thoughts can sink us. They can ruin things, sometimes, but usually only for ourselves.

I once had a fling with mindfulness meditation — more than a fling, really, but less than a marriage. Everyone told me it would calm the thinker's ocean, so I tried it. At one point, I was worried I wasn't doing it right, so I even took a class.

"I can't stop thinking," I told the teacher.

"Oh! That's fine," she said brightly. "Just notice your thoughts and move on!"

Move on.

That's like telling someone being chased by an angry Godzilla, "Just notice him and move on!"

I can't move on. That's why I'm here, lady.

In one meditation, I pictured the place where I've felt the most tranquil: the island of Santorini, whitewashed houses dotting the rocky cliffside, waves crashing onto the black beach. At the top of the cliff sat a house, with an infinity pool, and, in my mind, as I pretended to lie on a beach chair beside that pool, a thought occurred to me:

"Who's watching the kids? They might fall in."

Fall, I would like to reiterate, into the imaginary pool I had conjured up to help me relax.

Move on, indeed.

But that's why my grandmother lived well into her 90s on a diet of coffee cake, pimento cheese sandwiches and coffee, and why I've chewed through three of the mouthguards I wear to protect my teeth when I grind them at night.

"Wow!" the dentist said once, as I handed him a mouthguard that had literally shattered. "Guess you really need these!"

I do.

But I get my propensity for thinking honestly.

My dad's own teeth were worn to nubs, eventually forcing him to have them all capped. Now, when he smiles, he looks like a game show host, brilliant white chompers showing everyone that he gets them whitened but showing people who know better, like me, that without the miracle of modern dentistry, everyone in our family would grind their teeth into powder.

My kids also grind their teeth, and it makes me worry that maybe the oceans of their minds are already being tossed by the thinker's waves, too. I'm not quite sure what to do about it, other than add it to the already stuffed cargo ship of fears drifting around my head.

If my kids are anything like me, the thinker's waves will be a near-constant lifelong companion. They won't be able to get rid of them, so hopefully they're at least moderately amusing.

My children's only hope — mine, too, if I'm going to stay afloat — is to buy a canoe, learn to paddle and ride the thinker's whitecap waves, wherever they may take them.

Floating on an inner tube can get boring anyway.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

Photo credit: Josh Wedgwood at Unsplash