Out of Control

My good friend of 63 years is undergoing cancer treatments. Overall, she seems to be doing okay. There’s pain and fatigue, but her prognosis remains promising. Her main insight on the experience: “I think I’m a bit of a control freak.”

Well, aren’t we all?

My husband’s cancer brought a chilling realization that my personal control is limited. However, I’m a slow learner.

My friend’s comment broke down this facade I have carefully constructed, even in the shadow of cancer. I like the idea of having complete control over my life. It’s why I plan out my day, week, and month. It’s why I work on my Kanban board each week and make a to-do list at the start of the day. I live under this illusion that life will go as I planned- and any disruption to a charted course- dammit- must be part of a larger conspiracy by the unfair universe gods.

Every now and then, I have to remind myself that the sooner I surrender to reality and let go of what I had hoped would happen, the less insane everything feels.

In 2023, my husband and I flew to Scotland to see our daughter perform. I got a notice 12 hours before departure that the airline had cancelled our flight. I called to reschedule, and the only flight route available that day had a ninety-minute layover at Logan Airport in Boston. That would probably have been okay except we were delayed for an hour in Detroit.

The whole situation was infuriating. When we landed in Boston with minutes to spare, they let two passengers off before anyone else because they had flights to catch, but wouldn’t let my husband and me deplane. We were in the last row of the plane, and my husband no longer moves fast because of brain damage. We had 20 minutes to make it from the domestic terminal to our international flight.

Yes, we missed the flight and didn’t fly out until the next day.

Besides missing our daughter’s performance, I stressed over luggage and had anxiety about even getting to Scotland. The trip started off the wrong way and seemed like a harbinger of the next two weeks. I came close to having a meltdown, and it took a good, strong drink for me to calm down and regroup.

My son reminded me the next day that I was just paying the travel tax, and things will go wrong when you travel. It’s not IF, it’s WHEN. Sometimes, the tax is small, like a small delay. At other times, the tax feels grossly unfair, like being bumped from a flight. But what made me think I had control over flight schedules, or baggage handlers, or the airport craziness? Sure, I can make some personal choices, but that’s it – the universe does not spin on my command (even if I still wish it would).

While I know this truth, I occasionally continue to waste energy and time being angry or disappointed in the moment when I could be pivoting and finding a way to adapt and make the best of the unexpected.

That’s why writing is so tremendous for me- it provides lots of opportunities to pivot.

An agent sounds promising and a good fit, but never responds to the query. Or they do respond with a “not right for my list,” which leaves me wondering what gets on the list. Or they ask for a revise and resubmit, but then never respond to my second submission. That has happened with both agents and editors.

Pivot….pivot…pivot.

For me, discouragement sets in when I think I control more than learning my craft, the quality of my writing, and how hard I work. There’s a great deal of talk amongst writers these days on how to survive the current publishing climate (it sucks) with all sorts of advice: let go, stay authentic, believe it will happen!

That’s all true, but simply pivoting towards what I can actually do next instead of regretting not getting what I wished for will probably keep me sane through my next story. I hope I get a book published someday, but that will not happen unless I focus on what I actually control. True for writing, true for life.