On Letting Go and Lip Gloss

I’m learning to let go. There are just some things in life we have no control over and after years of banging my head on walls (cue the Head-On medicine commercial that annoyingly chimes, “apply directly where it hurts, apply directly where it hurts”) I’m a changed woman. Now I’m moving my forehead away from hard surfaces, opening my clenched fists, and releasing myself from the expectation I can “fix” or “adjust” or out-and-out change some matters.

Here’s where I’ve started:

I accept that Surfer Guy is never going to wipe down the bread board after making sandwiches. So rather than getting annoyed or upset, I am wiping it down myself. After all, he is making lunch for himself and the two boys, leaving me responsibility-free in the mornings except for ironing shirts, reading the newspaper, sipping the coffee that Surfer Guy made for me. So now after they all leave the house, I hum as I pick up the sponge.

I accept that son #2’s hair is his and his alone. That’s him, on the wakeboard in the photo (see—letting go!). He has beautiful, Shirley Temple-esque blond ringlets when he lets it grow. But after being mistaken for a girl one too many times (says I, he claims it’s too hard to surf, play basketball, skateboard, etc. with the long locks) he now regularly gets out the clippers and has Surfer Guy go to town.

I accept that I’m never going to lose my lust for potato chips, that I’m never going to rather go running than stay home reading, and that when I look at fashion magazines I will always believe that a new brand of mascara or that lip-plumping gloss will take off ten pounds, ten years, and add six inches to my height.

Now it’s your turn to play! Is there something in your life that you’ve learned to accept?