life Archives - Blogging by Beth

Fate

“Can you make a mistake and miss your fate?”

My freshman roommate had this Sex and the City quote hanging up in our dorm room and I’ve thought about it many times over the years. Whenever I feel really rudderless, it pops into my mind and I wonder if I made a wrong turn somewhere and totally missed the big, flashing sign that says FATE in 72-point font.

The older I get, though, the more I see how much these mistakes make our fate.

After I went to Italy, I wrote about the trip in my travel journal and one of the lines that still stands out to me is, “The best parts of our trip happened by accident.”

That particular line has always resonated because it was so true—the most memorable experiences of that trip were the parts that weren’t planned. The days when we got lost and stumbled onto an adventure or met a fellow traveler and allowed them to alter our itinerary. Did we know that we were going to meet a guy from Argentina and take a day trip with him to Pisa and Cortona? No, but that was a great experience.

When I take a larger step back and think about the course of my life in the same fashion, I see that a lot of the “mistakes” were what led me to big revelations. A conversation with a grumpy customer at my high school job eventually led me to take a trip to Israel. A night full of interesting dreams inspired me to pitch a dissertation about dreams in romantic literature for my MA.

During my MFA program, a teacher asked us to create a short piece on our path to writing. I crafted something about how I fell onto all of these different paths that led me to that particular creative writing program and framed it in the sense that I left the entire decision up to fate.

“It sounds like you did know what you were doing,” my teacher said when I finished reading the piece to the class. I remember getting quiet for a second as I thought about what he said.

“You’re right,” I finally admitted. And you know what? He was .

I’m not saying I don’t believe that certain things are meant to be. On the contrary, I definitely think things happen for a reason. But I also think we have more of an active role in the choice than most of us give ourselves credit for.

With that in mind, I’m sure I will still have days where I succumb to wondering if I made a mistake and totally bypassed my fate, but on the whole, I’m going to try to realize that the entire journey is important for the destination—even if there are a few bumps, detours, and mixed exits along the way.

Control

With a new catastrophe in the news almost daily and others on deck, it is easy to feel like we have little-to-no control over what’s happening around us.

And that thought terrifies me.

I have always been greedy about the levels of control in my life. Even when I was in college, I never felt the need to get blackout drunk and turn my mind off enough to make reckless decisions.

I hate sitting in the passenger seat of a car. I much prefer to drive or sit in the back so I can’t see what is happening in front of me. I like to be in control when I can because it makes me feel more balanced in a world that seems more off-kilter every morning.

The idea of control has been on my mind a lot lately, but I’ve been thinking about it differently than I usually do. And I’ve realized a few things about it:

Sometimes It’s Good to Loosen the Control Reigns

While it is important to feel in control of your life and your decisions, sometimes the best experiences occur when you back off and let loose. The first time I ever left the country, I went to Italy with a friend. We were nineteen and, although we weren’t stupid, we didn’t have much life experience. I kept a journal of the trip and the one line I really remember after all of these years is “the best parts of our trip happened by accident.”

In one of those instances, we met a guy from Argentina and decided to take the train from Florence to Cortona with him. Lucas spoke more Italian than my friend and I, and we completely trusted him to find us a taxi back to the train station. We didn’t know it until we were almost down the windy roads of the small village, but Lucas actually paid some regular guy to take us down the hill (this was way, way before the days of Uber and Lyft). I momentarily freaked out when I discovered this, but we ended up being fine.

When you travel, you have to give up control otherwise you will be disappointed. Going with the flow is the only way to ensure that you have a fun time. This is a good metaphor for life: sometimes it is just not possible to be in control and you have to be okay with it.

You Can’t Control Others, But You Can Control How You React to Them

I think a lot of people struggle with the fact that they can’t control what other people do, myself included. We will never be able to control what other people do, but we can control how we react to it. If someone cuts you off in traffic, it’s okay to be annoyed, but if you let it ruin your whole day, you are only hurting yourself.

Don’t take the actions of others so seriously that it starts to affect your life. Try to remember that everyone is doing the best they can and that they are not always in control of their circumstances, either. The only thing you can really control is what you do when you are faced with certain situations.

Control and Controlling Are Not the Same

I think it is important for each of us to feel in control of our lives—especially in relation to the present moment. That does not mean I think it’s necessary to be controlling of every interaction and circumstance that happens in your life, though.

Having control means that you are making active decisions to keep yourself moving forward. Being controlling means that you are trying too hard to make sure everything is done your way, even when it doesn’t specifically relate to you. I like being in control, but I never want someone else to feel like I am controlling.

Honor yourself and your emotions. Know that you have the power to change your present situation. Do not let yourself feel like a victim of your life. But don’t try to take away someone else’s control, either.

Just live, be present, be grateful, and always strive to be more.

Scars

I have a scar in the crook of my right elbow. It’s very light and most people never notice it, but its existence somewhat comforting for me. I got it one year in Florida. I think it was the last time my mom and I visited my grandparents together at their winter home.

We were going to visit some other family and I was already stressed out because my Jewish mom and grandparents were being loud and every-so-slightly neurotic. We got all the way down to the car before my grandfather realized he forgot the directions.

I offered to go back up to their third floor apartment to get them, but I wasn’t happy about it. It wasn’t really the inconvenience of going back upstairs. To be honest, I was a little relieved to get some time by myself and take a non-neurotic breath before spending more than an hour in the car with all the energy of my family. Now that I look back on it, I think I was frustrated more because it was so unlike my grandfather to forget something like that and it was one of the first signs that he was getting really old.

Anyway, I may have opened the door to their apartment a little too forcefully when I got back upstairs and my elbow got caught on a metal piece of the door. It started bleeding profusely right away and I knew that it was going to scar. I remember letting out a disgusted breath; not only would I have to find the directions, but now I would have to get a bandage too.

Although my negative inclinations seem silly now, I do remember thinking in the moment that I would be happy to have this scar. That I could always look back at it and remember the feeling of being at my grandparents’ house. There was and is something reassuring about it.

I’ve learned that scars don’t always show up the same way. There are the physical scars that constantly remind us of things, times, places, and people. The ones we can look at that instantly transform us somewhere else. My hands, legs, and even more forehead are littered with scars like this.

Then there are the hidden scars even we don’t see. The ones that affect us in unusual ways—like making us shy away from certain opportunities or that color our relationships with the people in our lives.

My friend and I were talking about these hidden scars this morning. One of my biggest hidden scars is about my father, with whom I have almost no relationship. I have definitely struggled with this scar throughout my life, but I have also honored those feelings enough that I usually find myself at peace about them.

During our conversation, though, I realized that just because you make “peace” with one of these scars does not mean that it heals. Like the physical scars on our bodies, they are always with us. And even if we have a good outlook about them, they can still pop up at unexpected times and muddy the aesthetic of our minds.

I also realized, though, that it’s okay if that happens. Because, like the scars on our bodies, these hidden scars tell the stories of our lives. If we let them, they can remind us of where we’ve been and allow us to stay centered as we move on to where we are going.

Instead of being disgusted by my scars, I’m going to try to feel some gratitude about them and understand that they helped shape me physically and emotionally.

And to realize that there is something soothing about the fact that they are always with me.