Have you ever had a word on the “tip of your tongue” but your brain falls short of retrieving it? When that happens to me, I find that if I just relax and think about something else, the word is likely to come.

I am currently pondering the phrase in the title of this blog, “I am the one thing in life that I can control”. Like the “tip of the tongue” word referenced above, I feel like I “almost but not quite” understand what this means. Maybe I can sort out that understanding while I write.

Maybe you don’t procrastinate but I do. My husband’s 101 year old grandmother whom I adore, lives a half hour away and in between visits she loves to get letters from me with details about what is going on in our lives. About a year ago, I started to write her once a week…I would get a letter in the mail sometime during the weekend for arrival to her the following week. She has told me over and over how much she enjoys reading my letters.

Over time though, I gradually lost momentum and the letters have become more infrequent. I feel badly about it and yet I just now let another weekend go by without writing to her. Who is responsible for the letters sent or not sent? Me. I control that and if I want to change what is going on with that, I am the one who is going to make the change.

On the other hand, I have been worrying constantly about my youngest two kids, 20 year old college sophomores both living away from home. I want them to make the decisions I would make, have the values I have and I want their actions to mirror my perception of the “right things to do”. In giving constant advice to them (which they don’t want), my son feels like I am hovering and my daughter feels like I’m trying to control her.

Within the last few weeks, I have come to realize that my anxiety over them (which I try to reduce by controlling them) is making life harder for them, not easier. Because my son struggles with anxiety and sleep issues, my hovering is preventing him from gaining the confidence that he can “do life” on his own. My daughter’s perception that I am trying to control her is possibly causing her to behave more radically against my values than perhaps she would if she didn’t feel the need to show me that I don’t control her.

Which brings me back to the fact that I really only control…me. I need to let go of what is out of my control such as my young adult kids.  That’s a tough one.  I’m working on it.