O.O.M.C.

life is hard sometimes, you know?

well, if you're reading this, my guess is that you're a human, so i know you know that. being a human is super tough. this is one of our universal truths that connects us all in human-ness.

i think right now what is really the most challenging for my little brain to understand is the idea of  controlling the tough human stuff: what is actually within my sphere of influence, and what is out of my control (OOMC). and then, once i make that distinction, riddle me this: how do i saddle up for the ride of the un-controllable things that are inevitably going to come?

for instance: my current out-of-my-control things involve big ticket items like: my mom in the middle of intense cancer treatment; my husband going through a very difficult and debilitating skin condition that doctors dismiss; trying to decide how to transition from working mom to stay at home mom and back again each week; having two small children that do NOTHING i want them to when i want them to (naps, anyone?! please? pretty please with a cherry on top?).

i also have a myriad of small, inane things i can't control: the worry over my baby boy's incessant crying- is it because we decided to wean him off hypoallergenic formula too early? or maybe the fever he woke up with today? or the four teeth he has coming in? then there's this baby pink nail polish dribbled in a long, splotchy line over the one and only (expensive) rug we have in the whole stupid house (my toddler needed to paint his toenails in the two point five seconds i stepped away to throw something in the trash). i also have these two swollen eyelids that are apparently suddenly allergic to my life, and i look like a really awesome stoner mom all day. i am still waiting for license plates that just won't come in the mail, even after i paid an arm and a leg for them, and the temp tag on my car is expired by, like, 452 months past the grace period, and i just *fingers crossed* reeeeeally hope i don't get pulled over every day i drive.... etc. etc.

so. many. things!

all the things!

i can't control a single one! lord help me.

lately, it's been difficult to not dwell on the list of OOMC things and come to a sort of justified conclusion that i need to drink a bottle of wine tonight - and every night- til kingdom come and things finally get back into my control. however, let's be honest: i've put in some research in the last few months and learned that drinking a whole bottle of anything doesn't put anything back into my control and lately (because i'm old as dirt), it just gives me a raging headache the next day as i work through that day's out-of-my-control problems.

so let's just go drink wine anyway and call it a day. who's with me??

bueller?

i guess this is where i'd love to insert some amazingly sage wisdom that makes everyone feel like they just figured out the secret to life and can now control all their out-of-my-control problems. wouldn't that be great? sorry (notsorry) but i actually don't have that wisdom.

i could tell you some things that i feel like give me some semblance of control or relief from no control (praying, running, laughing, wine in moderation (most times), Jesus, calling friends, blogging, praying,  knitting, staring at walls, sitting in a locked bathroom alone for like three minutes, praying, etc), but those are sort of distractions and really just serve to release some tension. they don't solve much.

i think i found two things that allow me to actually sit with the discomfort of being out of control (and therefore are the answers to my world right now, and i should probably make sure to re-read this later to take my own advice).

one: remembering the stuff that makes life awesome. because most of that is out of my control too, and i couldn't make it better if i tried. for me, a lot of that is the stuff surrounding my kids do during the day (insert vomit/"she's talking about her kids again" emoji here please). like today, i said to my husband, " i didn't mean that in a condescending way" and my two year old ran around naked, yelling, "condescending way! condescending way! condescending way!". or when my one year old intentionally walks up to me with a poker face and then points at me with his chubby little hand and smiles so big, from the bottom of this toes to the top of his head. or the light of the sun setting as we walk back from the library and ice cream store, pulling my little dudes in our red wagon and holding my husband's hand. i can't control any of that stuff but man, it melts my heart.

and, take heart, you with no children! not all of it is kid stuff, either- some of this happens at work, too. like when my clients make big break throughs or changes that i can see radically improve their lives. or when i hold the newborn baby of a client that came in initially because she thought she'd never be loved by anyone, let alone get married and have a baby. i don't get to control what my clients do in their time away from our sessions, but when i see it working and them finding joy, i can't help but relish in the mysterious nature of life that i cannot control nor predict.

the second solution for me is: perspective. reminding myself and  surrounding myself with other people. because they also have out of their control problems. and some of them are so much smaller, and some of them are so much bigger, and all of us together can connect over the same feeling of being out of control. for instance: there's this blogger/writer/beautiful woman i recently started following (ie stalking, like a total creeper) on instagram and her blog. on the surface, she has the most beautiful life, in photos and in writing. but if you look closely, you learn that that beauty is made up of mothering three adorable kiddos, two of which are medically fragile, and one of which she was told would probably not even been born alive. as i read through the chronicles of her life and admire her simple, bright pictures, i am in awe that someone that has had so many seemingly discouraging and life-changing out of control problems has such a beautiful, hopeful perspective on life. she has taken her out-of-my-control prob;ems and embraced them, lived them, loved through them.

and i don't have to find people that only have bigger problems than mine to gain perspective. every single person i do life with has their own story they are trying to write, fraught with plot twists and antagonists, pit falls and broken story lines. we are all just these humans, with broken things happening to and around us. rather than trying to compare, rather than trying to isolate myself and tell myself that my stuff is 'so bad' and i 'just can't handle it', i have to immerse myself in others to see that i'm not alone in my out-of-my-control feelings. it's a healing that's hard to beat, learning that you're not alone (even if you're the only one with a pink nail polished rug).