focus and control

You may have noticed that my posts lately have contained a preponderance of exclamation points. I have also been using language that I really shouldn't. Suffice it to say that lately I have been a bit overwrought. In a crisis, I'm your girl. I am calm, cool and collected. I am the one who will not lose my head. I will save the day. Every day life is a different story. The details make me feel just a little bit manic. The silly, little, unimportant things make me crazy. I have this going list in my head of what my life is supposed to look like (you know clean closets, home cooked meals, obedient tendons in my legs, shiny floors, unique and special art projects, sparkly clean car, impressive race finishing times, promptly sent thank you notes, etc.) and when I can't make it fit my mold, I get anxious. Intellectually I know that this is stupid but apparently this is not enough to make me stop doing it. Luckily my life is full of people who for reasons beyond my comprehension, not only put up with my wackiness but embrace me and encourage me. Maybe they think I'm funny. I kind of hope so. Friends who perform pt diagnoses on family room couches, friends who listen to me ramble about whatever I am currently freaking out about, friends who ask my advice, friends who keep inviting me, who love my children and laugh with me, who tell me I'm right and tolerate and even sanction my excesses. I have a husband whom I adore and who will hold me in the middle of our kitchen when I am a little teary and not ask why, who wants to spend time with only me and can't even comprehend that there could be a better match for him in the world besides me and tells me so often. I am pretty good at the mom thing. We dance in the living room and finger paint on the windows, we play in the mud and and shoot stomp rockets off in the house just to see what will happen. I love it and I can laugh at it and myself doing it. I don't know why this attitude doesn't translate to the rest of my life. I feel like I am always searching for balance and I just don't get there. How did my life fill up with all this goodness? I certainly didn't earn it, but I am oh so grateful. Maybe I will get better at focusing on what matters and letting everything else go or maybe I will just get everything else under control. I vote for the latter, I just can't seem to help it.