I have a problem with control. They say the first step in getting over a problem is admitting you have it. So there. I said it. POOF! Now I want to be over it.

When I say control, I don’t mean I have an obsession with a clean apartment. Far from it. I don’t mean I have an obsession with order. Nope not that either. But I do have an issue with control I am trying to figure out. I have also been doing a lot of soul searching and praying and trying to figure out if Mom’s MS is teaching me a lesson- because there is a part of all of this that I am struggling with more than Sister K and different from Dad. I think today I may have figured out one piece of the lesson. I don’t have any control over Mom’s MS, Mom doesn’t have any control over it and more importantly I don’t have any control over how it is impacting my life and my family’s life.

Today I may or may not have gotten really frustrated and mad at Mom when I called her at lunch. I got frustrated over something silly. Seriously silly. I’m going to tell you what it was about because we are all our own version of family here and I am going to be honest- it was about college football tickets. My parents have two season tickets to my alma mater’s college games and Papa has two tickets. They are all together. This Saturday there is a game and we aren’t able to go. Papa is selling the tickets to a man who did some work on his house. I don’t know why but this frustrated me and I got mad. Mad because Mom didn’t understand the details. Mad because I thought there were other people we actually knew who we could sell them to. Mad because we don’t know this person but we do know other people who would enjoy going. Mad because this is something in the past Mom would have orchestrated and figured out seamlessly. I don’t know, that was part of the list running in my head. Instead now my 87 year old Papa is figuring it out, not making what I think is the best decision. As I ordered my iced tea from McDonald’s drive-thru and drove back to my apartment to each lunch, it hit me. I have no control over the situation. Zero control. Nothing astronomically bad is going to happen. This didn’t even involve something that serious. Football tickets.

You could say I got home for lunch and was frustrated. I was irritated with myself. Irritated with my lunch break feeling ruined once again. Irritated with how I had once again failed and lost my cool with Mom.

I decided to take a 5 minute mental break and just sit. Sit and stare. Let me tell you where the best place to do that is- with our cat Chloe. Looking out the window. Staring at birds. Because that is what Chloe does. She sits and she stares. At birds, at moving tree branches, at the rain, at anything and nothing all at the same time.

So I sat and I stared. It was peaceful.

Do you ever take time to clear your mind? To think about nothing? To just sit and stare at something? Have you ever lost your cool over something dumb? Do you have a problem with control? Do you think I have a problem with control or do you think I still have a lot of digging to uncover the lessons I am learning? Isn’t Chloe the cutest? Probably going to see a lot more of her on here. She brings me a lot of peaceful moments of pause these days.