Control is mostly (definitely) an illusion.

Silly me. I assumed once I figured life out it wouldn't change again. I could finally rest my weary head and, I don't know, smoke a pipe? But don't worry, it never came to that because I have learned one thing over and over again in life: control is mostly an illusion.

It's a real nice illusion though. Real nice. It's a bit like a low-hanging cloud scuttling around the middle of a mountain range. When I was younger I always had a dream of taking a jar up to those clouds and bringing some of it back with me. It was a tangible goal; I could get a jar, maybe wear a jacket and hike up to the unsuspecting cloud and snaggle some to take home. Then I think I realized that you couldn't catch a cloud in a jar. Well, technically, sure you can, but it just condenses to water droplets. This reminds me of control. You work to get to it, plan for it, but you can never quite have it, just the illusion of it in a wet jar.

I'm not sure why this is a lesson I've had to re-learn so many painful times in life. I thought I'd figured it out on so many different occasions, it's actually quite funny looking back. Silly me. Nothing has brought this lesson home further than marriage and motherhood. I know, I know, these are pretty much the only topics I write about but you have to admit, they're pretty major ones.

She's the best baby. Worth every moment of crying, spit-up and blow-outs.

Six pounds 11 ounces. Small, snoozy and dark-haired. My precious baby girl helped remind me of my jar full of water droplets. She was beautiful, of course, from day one. She had a crazy entry into life and then she demanded I give it all up for her. And I did. Steve did too. I didn't try to control all that much for the first six or eight weeks, but then as I started feeling more myself I started looking for my cloud-catching jar. Boy, oh boy, did that ever backfire. I had to relearn how to feel in control of the simplest aspects of adult life (ie: brushing my teeth or getting to take a shower). I felt completely out of control. Very luckily, I had a superstar husband and family to help remind me that this is how every new mother feels.

Hottest husband? Check.

But I've learned. I've adapted. Not always gracefully or with any tact, but I'm slowly getting there. I felt so confused for the longest time because I couldn't seem to get back that elusive control I'd so lovingly cultivated before all of this. I was doing all of the same things that brought it before -- why the flip wasn't it working? I'm going to wax quite poetic no,w but I think when I'd climbed the mountain with my jar, I looked out and saw that the mountain had changed, as well as the cloud and the jar I would need. I'm pretty sure that's happened every single time I've felt like "Aha! I've got the secret control formula now!" 

It's never going to be the same as before. That's just a fact of life. Doesn't mean it's a nasty, gross fact, like taxes or death. It can be a really cool, interesting and liberating fact, like you can eat dessert before dinner if you want. Control is an illusion, I'm pretty sure I've never been in control in my life. My jar always comes back with water droplets, not a cloud. But I learn and grow every time I try and find control, and there are things I can control in my ever-changing life. Whom I love (like my hot husband and beautiful baby),  my attitude toward all this change, which at best is grudgingly and at worst is full of tears, and if I want to eat lots of chocolate at 7 a.m. instead of a waffle.

So I'm going to try and remember that even though I can mostly control nothing and life will keep slapping me in the face with the red herring of change, I can control what I learn from it and a few small but really important aspects like love, perspective and chocolate consumption.