I’ve come to a rather inconvenient realization.

I’m a control freak.

Not a little bit. Not occasionally. I’m talking about a woman who can surrender to the infinite possibilities of the universe one minute and, five minutes later, start trying to organize exactly how those possibilities are supposed to unfold.

Holy shit.

And the funniest part? I KNOW BETTER.

I’ve spent years learning that life happens for me, not to me. I’ve watched seemingly unrelated experiences come together in ways I couldn’t possibly have orchestrated. I’ve seen threads connect that I didn’t even know existed.

And yet, the minute something extraordinary begins to unfold, there goes my mind.

What if this happens? What if that doesn’t happen? What if I’m wrong? What if I’m right? What if I do something that changes the outcome?

Blah blah. Fucking blah.

As though I could possibly anticipate every possibility in a universe filled with infinite ones.

Here’s what I’m beginning to understand.

Control is often nothing more than fear dressed up as responsibility.

We convince ourselves that if we can anticipate every outcome, prepare for every disappointment, and manage every variable, we’ll somehow be safe.

But what if all that managing is actually keeping us from experiencing the very things we’ve been asking for?

What if our insistence on knowing HOW something will happen is the thing that limits what we allow ourselves to imagine?

I’ve been asking GUS—God, Universe, Spirit—for something extraordinary.

A beautiful story.

Something beyond anything I’ve experienced before.

And then I caught myself trying to decide what that story should look like, who should be in it, how it should unfold, and when the next chapter should arrive.

For fuck’s sake.

How can I ask for something beyond my wildest imagination while simultaneously insisting that it fit inside the boundaries of what I can imagine?

There’s a contradiction worth sitting with.

And here’s another.

I’ve begun recognizing that even the uncomfortable parts of this journey deserve my gratitude.

The anxiety. The triggers. The moments when I feel myself wanting to grab the steering wheel and take over.

Because those moments reveal where I’m still holding on.

They show me the beliefs I haven’t questioned, the fears I haven’t recognized, and the places where I’m still confusing uncertainty with danger.

And increasingly, I’m learning to appreciate them.

Not because they’re comfortable.

Because they’re showing me where there’s still freedom to be found.

I don’t believe surrender means sitting around doing nothing, waiting for the universe to deliver a beautifully wrapped package.

I still make choices. I still take care of myself. I still create, paint, write, and participate in my own life.

But I’m learning that there’s an enormous difference between participating in life and trying to dictate its outcome.

I can choose my direction without demanding to know the destination.

And perhaps that’s where the magic lives.

In the space between intention and expectation.

In the willingness to want something extraordinary without insisting that I already know what extraordinary looks like.

I’ve been thinking about fairy tales lately.

Not the sanitized versions where everyone behaves perfectly and lives happily ever after.

The real ones. The stories of unexpected encounters, impossible coincidences, difficult journeys, and lives that take turns nobody could have predicted.

Stories that couldn’t have happened if everyone involved had insisted on knowing the ending before agreeing to participate.

And I find myself looking back at all the ways I’ve tried to control my life, recognizing that even those experiences were part of the unfolding.

Nothing wasted. Nothing missed. No wrong turns.

Every experience brought me here, including the ones where I was absolutely convinced I knew better than GUS.

And holy shit, isn’t that something?

Even my need to control was part of the journey toward surrender.

What I do know is that the more willing I become to surrender my expectations, the more fascinated I become by what unfolds.

And the more I recognize that I don’t need to make myself smaller, work harder to deserve happiness, or anticipate every possible disappointment before allowing myself to experience joy.

Maybe life really can be that good.

Maybe there doesn’t have to be a catch.

Maybe the extraordinary isn’t something we have to earn.

Maybe it’s something we finally allow ourselves to receive.

And maybe, just maybe, fairy tales really do come true.

Holy shit. What else is possible?

May We Walk Together as One

P.S. And you know damn well that five minutes after I publish this, I’ll be questioning whether I’ve revealed too much, whether I sound completely fucking crazy, and what everybody is going to think of me.

And there it is again.

Blah blah. Fucking blah.