The "Why" of Things

I don't know if is age or faith, but I am hitting a point where discovering the "why" of things isn't as important to me. 

This revelation came to me in the car last night. I was listening to music. There were lyrics that were really speaking to me, calming in a way that I tried to describe to myself. Slowly I realized that I didn't need to have that inner dialog about why the words were calming. It didn't matter what the reasons behind my emotional reactions were.

That is wildly strange for me. I have named and analyzed nearly every emotion and thought that has run through my brain for years. About fifteen years ago I began therapy to deal with the abuse that occurred when I was younger, as well as to stop what I saw as destructive behaviors. Honestly, that was mostly about my weight. I knew that I was eating as a coping mechanism and I wanted to stop doing that. The self discovery was amazing and I don't regret a moment of it. Being asleep and not acknowledging what you are feeling is a sad way to live. I think, though, that I may have swung too far away from being asleep and gotten into being hyper vigilant. I find myself over-analyzing and over-thinking far too much of what happens in my life. My weight has fluctuated a lot throughout the process, but the person that I am has only gotten stronger. Calmer too.

I keep thinking back to when God told me "hush". It made me realize that I do waste valuable time trying to figure stuff out. Getting to the very bottom of emotions is a never ending and pointless task. Not only is it life sucking, it is also exhausting.

I'm tired of tiring myself out with worry.

My daughter is 25 years old. She lives at home, has a college degree, and suffers from depression and anxiety. After a couple of years of working low wage jobs she is currently unemployed and writing a novel. She pays rent, she pays her expenses, and she frets about living at home at 25. Up until yesterday I worried about her a lot. I worried that she would live at home for the rest of her life and never experience life outside of the nest. 

I realized yesterday that one of my main worries is what everyone else must think about us, about me as a mother who apparently can't get her child to grow up and leave. Once I named that fear I decided that it doesn't matter. There are all types of lives and life stories and ways of getting from the cradle to the grave. I can't control what other people think. I like having her here, and if this is the decision she wants to make about how and where to live her life then okay. I am not interested in navigating her life choices for her. I hard a difficult enough time with my own that I don't need to be directing hers. 

She is going to be okay regardless, just as I am okay despite the difficulties and challenges of my life. Or maybe I am okay because of the difficulties and challenges. That's something else I no longer feel the need to analyze.

I am just going to enjoy the music that plays in my life. I'll control the few things I can control and I'll let go of what I can't. 

I am a little clearer now on which is which.