Writers on the Storm

Control

The other day, I was driving my friends back from a beautiful day at an outdoor pool reserve.  We were having a great time, enjoying each other’s company, loving life exactly as it was.  And then a girl in a car next to me suddenly cut that off, swerving into my lane, causing me to lose control of my car.  I couldn’t steer, I couldn’t brake, I couldn’t get out of the road, I couldn’t go back in time and stop it from happening, I couldn’t look to see if my friends were all still okay.  I don’t even think I could’ve breathed if I had tried, but I couldn’t try, either, I couldn’t even think about trying because my mind was too completely and overwhelmingly occupied by what was happening around it.  I couldn’t do anything but sit and wait for it to be done.  I had completely lost any and all control.  I had none.  And I can honestly say it was the worst feeling I’ve ever felt.

A good friend once told me that the only way to handle the things we don’t have any control over in our lives is to focus on what we can control.  I appreciated the words at the time, but the more I turn them over in my head, the more I realize just how few those things are.  We can’t control the weather, or the people around us, or the objects we use.  We can put our hands on the wheel and our keys in the ignition, but the engine, the wheels, the brakes, they’re all controlled by the machine, and they all have the potential to fail.  The other cars still have every freedom in the world to swerve spitefully and forget that they can’t control the lives around them, either.  We don’t have any control over any of that.  The only thing we can possibly have any control over is ourselves.  That’s scary.  That is a scary, scary thing.

But I’m doing my best to focus on that.