Control Freak with No Control

A number of years ago, I was stressing about a few particular things going on in my life and a friend of mine gave me this little lecture about trying to focus on the actual things I had control over. He drew a diagram with two circles – one inside the other. The inside circle was me and what I had control over. The outside circle was everything – all the things I was worried about. The area of where the circles overlapped – those represented things I could actually do something about. Anything outside of that were things I had no control over. I think this was taken from a book – discussing “circle of influence / circle of concern”. I of course remember it as “circle of control” because I’m an admitted control freak. So this is what I remember it looking like:

The problem however, is that sometimes in my life, I feel that blue circle in the middle is really really small. And that just about drives me nuts. Makes me depressed. Frustrated. Resentful. Sometimes it seems like what I actually have control over are inconsequential things like – what will we have for dinner. Things that really don’t affect my life on the whole. This is what it feels like right now:

There’s probably disastrous ways to change the shift – but… yeah – they’re disastrous. To shift priorities in my life, I gave up some control of it. It was a choice I made. I don’t regret it. But that doesn’t change the fact that things are not so great right now. I keep trying to dream like I described in my last post but even that has become hard at times. The difficulty is that I need to come up with the idea – and then make other people act on it – as I am not the one in control so I can’t do it myself. THIS is why I am a control freak. Trying to influence people to act on my dream – I’m “nagging” them or “stressing them out”. I just want to move forward.

Why dreaming is important

You have to dream. If you don’t dream you can never learn what it is you want, you can never define your goals. You have to open up your mind to what may seem impossible. You have to be willing to believe that good things can come your way.

The fact of the matter is that most of the time, reality sucks. There’s bills to pay, risks threatening on your every turn. If all you do is focus on reality, you will never move forward. If all you do is focus on the problems that might come up, you will never improve your existence. If you are thrilled with the way things are, then maybe this is okay. Stagnation in itself is not a problem. But if you are not happy, then you have to make change. Life it too short to live it in fear of what might happen, or protecting what you have because you’re afraid to take a risk.

I’m not saying throw caution to the wind and jump off a bridge – but calculated risks need to be taken. I do not believe in a higher power, but that doesn’t stop me from believing that somehow things will work out. Somehow, I’ll find a way to fix the problems that might come up. The reward is worth the risk, and the problems that come up can be dealt with if/when they are a reality.

When you dream, you leave the risks out of the picture, you forget reality, and suddenly you can picture what it is that will make you happy. While you may never acheive that dream to the smallest detail, and things will never be perfect, you need that dream to help define a goal and give you the direction you need to head to.

You also need to continue to dream as you work towards acheiving your goal. By doing so, you allow yourself to adjust your course and fine tune your goal or change directions if you need to. (Sometimes the grass may just seem greener on the other side, and if so, once you start realizing that – change your course).

Because we are human, we are all too aware of the possibility of our own demise. Some completely ignore it – some live in fear of it and by doing so have trouble truly living. There is a happy medium in there somewhere. That is why dreams are so wonderful. Explore the impossible in your dream. Ignore reality just for the moment. You have to know what’s on the other side before you can plot the course to get there.

Faint heart never won fair lady.

House Music

Growing up, there was always music in the house. Both my brothers played various instruments, but particularly my second oldest brother played piano and particularly well. I played piano for a few years but never came close to being even a fraction as good as he was. But my brother played all the time. If he was home – there was music in the air.

I miss having music in the house. For awhile, Rachel was taking cello lessons, and when she’d practice – there was music in the house again. But this year we’ve had all kinds of issues with her and her grades and I needed to cancel the lessons so she could focus on getting her grades back up. So it is silent again.

When my mother came to visit us recently, she brought with her a new instrument she’s been playing for the last year or so. It’s called a mountain dulcimer. For kicks, I had her teach me a little bit. It’s simpler than playing piano, so simple it reminds me of playing one of the kids toys – but the sound is beautiful. She taught me a few songs and how to read “tablature” – music specifically written for the dulcimer – it’s very easy to follow. Rachel even picked up her cello and played along with my mother and I. (She hasn’t played her cello since we stopped lessons).

So now I’m on a quest to find a dulcimer. I want music in my house again.

Spring Cleaning Inspiration

Nothing like watching an epsiode of Hoarders to inspire some spring cleaning! LOL! The kids playroom – previously such a disaster you couldn’t walk in the room – is now looking rather nice. And despite the kids fears that I was going to throw away all their toys – there’s still plenty left to play with – they don’t miss the ones I tossed. (Usually broken toys, or ones that involved numerous (missing) pieces). It feels so good to PURGE! I’d love to just keep throwing stuff out.

SO not ready for prime time

We had our family ski day today. I should have known what was to come since I was feeling particularly anxious about it. To the point of barely being able to sleep the night before from the endless anxiety dreams. I know it sounds crazy – but when I get that worked up – it rarely ends up being a situation where you could say “See – all that worry for nothing!” If I’m worrying, and that much… it’s usually with good reason.

The big problems were what we were going to do with Zach. The group lesson we wanted to put him in was a situation where you had to get there, sign up after you arrived and hoped they still had an opening. You couldn’t make a reservation. I was worried about him not liking it (I think he thought he was going sledding not skiing.) On the way up we even talked about maybe it would be better anyway not to do the group lesson and just do a 1 hour private lesson – but then what would Sam do the rest of the time with him? And as my fear came to reality – the group lesson was booked up – all we had available was the 1 hour private lesson. While I think that was great for Zach – he did really well in the class – it meant that Sam was entertaining him for the rest of the time we were up there – and that definitely had a time limit.

And me? The instructor I had for my private lesson last time had said that I should be good for a level 3 lesson the next time I come in. But either that was a gross overconfidence in my abilities, or this particular “level 3 lesson” wasn’t your average level 3 lesson. There was one guy in there who said he had actually been skiing for 30 years, but just never took a lesson. I should have known then to ask for a different group. The instructor and I did NOT click (it was not the same one I had for my private lesson) and in fact he got kind of mad at me at one point because they had stopped kind of quickly at a steep part of the hill, and I had gone a little further down because, sorry, I just can’t stop that quickly. Also, he apparently preferred to ski IN FRONT of the class. (How this was supposed to help us when he couldn’t even see what we were doing, I don’t know) So he took us all the way up the mountain. When we would ski for a stretch, he would get so far ahead. At one point I had fallen, and of course how could he know because he was way down ahead, and by the time I got back up and was able to get going again, I had no idea where everyone was. When I finally found them – I realized I was on the opposite side of the run, I tried to slow down, but could not, and fell, again. Meanwhile, I’m looking at them, and they’re all looking up the mountain wondering where I am.

This happened a few times and then I finally said I was probably in the wrong class. He called in a snow mobile to take me to another lift nearby that brought me back down. My confidence has been more than a bit bruised. I guess I should be happy that’s all that’s bruised, seeing how many times I had fallen.

My biggest fear is speed. I like to ski slow and controlled. I had hoped that green runs meant a less steep hill – and sure, it is less steep than blue and black – but I guess I need something even less steep than what we were on. (Which was green)

I got a few more runs in on what is apparently called the “turtle run” (Rachel told me thats what they call it – figures that’s all I’d be able to do) and then I started getting text messages from Sam that Zach’s patience for the day was ending. There was only 30mins left technically to our lessons so I figured it was close enough and we called it a day. (And don’t even get me started with how I had to argue with Rachel’s instructor to get her out of the class. He kept going on about how they’re sticklers for the rules, and the class isn’t over yet, etc. and I’m like – there’s only 30mins left to the lesson, I am her MOTHER – we need to go – WE ARE GOING! Don’t even tell me I can’t take my own child! What the hell??)

My goal was to be able to do a green run – the easiest kind of run there is in skiing. I didn’t think that was an outrageous goal – but apparently even still it’s going to be quite awhile before I can do it without falling flat on my face every 5 feet, or going down the mountain as I fear: extremely fast and without control.

No, I’m not going to give up – but that doesn’t change the fact that I feel pretty deflated right now. I felt so confident last week – and this time? Just awful.

Trick or cute little useless toy?

I‘ve been debating for a few weeks about the possibility of getting cute little (useless) toys to hand out at Halloween instead of candy. On one hand, not buying candy means not having something very tempting in the house that *I* am very likely to eat (and really need to NOT be eating). As well, I feel guilty handing out food I myself am trying not to eat because it’s unhealthy. (Well, at least in mass quantities anyway) 😉

My one fear is that while I will not be personally contributing to the obesity problem in our country, I’m afraid the neighborhood kids might respond by deciding to contribute to the lack of toilet paper in the area around my house. Heh.

On the other hand, what would I hand out? I could hand out fruit or something – but what?? Or some kind of little prize/toy … which would surely end up in the garbage before too long and then spend the next 100 years in a landfill somewhere…

Maybe I’ll go middle of the road… and get little packages of goldfish crackers or something. It’s not sweets, it’s not THAT bad/unhealthy, and (except for the little package/bag it comes in) it’s mostly biodegradeable…

I know at least for my own kids – the real fun isn’t even the candy they get. It’s going around, showing off their costume, getting something (anything, they don’t even care WHAT) from all the neighbors. Most of the candy gets thrown out because they don’t even like it anyway. Zach usually has one bite of each thing and then spits it out. He’s a lot of fun to hang out with on Halloween! Very appropriate for the holiday: very scary! LOL! At least something like goldfish crackers… I mean, who doesn’t like that??