I'm a control freak. I have always been a control freak and can safely say it has taken me some 30+ years to realize I can't control everything. It seems so simple but it's not. I always try to fix things or situations between people and quite honestly it's exhausting and my intentions, on more than one occasion have backfired anyway.
My epiphany happened this weekend when my daughter was rude to my husband and he became upset. She had lost her cheer competition and he tried to console her but ended up pissing her off more. Anyway, they didn't talk the whole ride home and I knew once she got over her dissapointment she was going to feel like shit. I was right.
Once we were home she asked me what to do and what to say. I can't tell you what a relief it was to say "Your on your own, figure it out." It was a shock to both of us. I'm mom, aka janitor, cleaner of all messes.
My only advice was to say what was in her heart.
In previous situations I was the go between and would try to fix everything because I didn't like to see them fight and I was convinced my husband was mean and didn't love our daughter. I now realilze that their arguments are just that: their arguments and their's to fix and of course my husband loves our daughter. She's his world. He was and is just trying to teach her a life lesson about how to treat people.
The best part was that I didn't have to use any of MYown energy in this situation and listened to them hash it out while I took a long, luxurious, candle lit bubble bath. Heaven.
Another situtation happned this evening when sibling A texted me that sibling B had not texted him back. In that middle of that texting conversation I instinctively started to text sibling B if he had recieved sibling A's text. As luck would have it my mom called and interrupted that text. When the call was over I didn't finish the text because it wasn't my place or that important to me and it probably wasn't that important to sibling A either.
So this is how I'm choosing to live my life now, not trying to control things and definitly not cleaning up other people's messes. I'm turning in my keys.
