Let it Be

Life.  It has it's moments.  Some better than others.

Apparently my honeymoon with my 30s are over.  It wasn't a bad run...five years, not bad at all.  I seem to be stuck in a rut all of a sudden...well, over the last seven months or so.  Oh, it hasn't all been bad.  There have been plenty of good times but somehow I always end up back where I started.  It's a bit like chasing my tail.  But, through it all I've come to realize something...something that's become a bit of a motto for me...something that has helped me accept all the events that seem to have been swirling around me.  "It is what it is."

There have been many times in my life that I've tried to force things to go the way I think they should.  You see, and I may have mentioned this before, I'm a bit of a control freak.  Not on the obsessive level, but I do seem to need to feel like I have some semblance of control over portions of my life.  I'm a creature of comfort...I like to find my niche and stay there.  I need "normalcy".  I don't handle change well.  I'm always amazed when I confide this to people and they are very surprised by it.  It would seem that I appear to be someone that enjoys change.  I assure you, it's on the outside alone.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all about rearranging furniture or learning/trying new things...but it has to be on my terms.  Throw in some life altering event and my insides positively cringe, toes curl, teeth nash.  My friends, there have been way too many life altering events the last seven months.

At one point this past winter, still surrounded by snow up to our ears, I found myself sitting in my garage absolutely unable to force myself out the door, my fingers poised over the numbers on my cell phone, quite certain that I was going to have to call my father and tell him he needed to make the 8 hour trip here to help me.  It's not easy admitting this; setting it adrift on the waves of cyberspace for anyone and everyone to read.  I like to think of myself as a strong person; not as someone who is capable of a complete shut down.  I don't like it one bit.

Somewhere along the line during my constant analysis of myself and my life, I realized "it is what it is."  There are somethings that I have to accept as they are.  Forcing things to fit into what I consider to be right wouldn't do any good.  In fact, it would most likely just make things worse.  So it seems I keep returning to my new motto, religiously.  I  breathe, take a step back and choose acceptance.

Acceptance that I can't do everything alone and that I have to occassionally ask for help.  Acceptance that, though my daughter has chosen to live with her father and I have made mistakes, I am a good person and mother.  Acceptance that I am what I am...and that is exactly as God made me and that I'm beautiful in His eyes.  Acceptance that "alone" is not a four letter word.

Yes, life is what you make it.  Sometimes the best way to make it good is to just let it be.