Be warned, I’m not sure how much sense this post is going to make because I’m functioning on 2 hour intervals of sleep and feel like I’m going to be sick to my stomach…night time is always the toughest. But anyway, continuing on…

I’ve been thinking about this post on and off for a few days now. One of the things I’ve always struggled with, and mind you have considerably improved on throughout the years, is this battle with wanting to control things, this is my own personal tug of war. I’m sure that somewhere in my DNA I inherited a certain amount or dosage of this trait, but I also feel part of it was learned. Growing up I saw a lot of this with my mom. I remember things were always in order at home and nothing was out of place and whenever plans got changed up it was always a bit difficult for my mom to adjust to the change because she liked to be in control of things and know what was coming next.

I’ve definitely had my own battle throughout the years with similar situations and even though I realize now that there is nothing I can control and how important it is to be flexible, this is still something I am working on so that I don’t drive myself just a bit crazy. For instance, right now with being a new parent I understand how important it is to sleep during the day when our little one is resting, and yet in these first few weeks I have found moments where even though I have felt exhausted I also felt this pull to clean up or put at least just one thing in order – to want to control the things around me. It’s a win-lose situation because there’s a part of me that feels more at ease when things are clean but then if I’m not recuperating some sleep then really it doesn’t matter how clean or orderly something is because I’m not feeling at ease but instead tired and cranky. And often times I think…is it wrong to want to have things moderately organized and clean? But then again the flip side of my thought is, is it really that hard for me to just let some things be at times? I find myself answering yes and no to both questions.

Well what I realize is that I need to surrender to God and understand that I can’t control things and let him help me find that peace and flexibility. It doesn’t mean I need to live like a pig but that there is a balance and that’s what I need to work on.  Sometimes I just need to let go. Plus it matters even more to me now to not get worked up over the small meaningless things I can’t control because all the emotions I feel, particularly the negative ones like frustration, get transmitted back to our little baby and that’s the last thing I want to be laying on her. And the beauty and humor of it all is that I now see that if there is one thing in life that will show you what lack of control you have, it’s having a baby!

So for now I’m going to work on lettting go of that hold and taking steps each day at being flexible so that I don’t drive myself unnecessarily crazy.

Plus this photo I found online made me laugh so much, I love that little girls face…so determined to win that tug…reminds me of myself, ha!