The Weight of the Last Orchid Lifted

Somebody, who's insights I take seriously, recently told me, "You think you can control everything."  She didn't say it judgmentally, just as a matter of fact.  And I have been obsessed with that thought for a week now.  What do I control?  How much control do I have over this orchid plant, this lone surviving bloom?  I suppose I could keep the plant alive if I study orchids. And yet, this translucent bloom so full of color and life in the afternoon sun, will die no matter what I do.  What I put in my mouth, what I choose to do with my body to keep it in shape, how I speak to others, how I handle my money.  I suppose I have control over all those things but sometimes I wonder.  For example, I can only put in my mouth what is available to me.  What if I lived in the Ukraine?  Would I have control over the Russians bombing my hometown and leaving me with little to eat?  Would I be making the privileged choice between dark chocolate with caramel or warm chai tea for my afternoon snack?  When I look at it that way I wonder if I have any control at all. For most of my life, taking charge and managing is how I've survived, on guard to prepare for whatever was incoming.  Restraining and restricting, commanding and handling my feelings in the midst of chaos and overwhelm.  That's why I was so good at managing a wild child zipping down the hallways barefoot yelling like a banshee.  Or the second grade girl standing on a classroom table screaming for her mother wielding a stick like a lightsaber.  Or the boy who'd climb on top of the building to the awe and frustration of the administrative types in suits who yelped for me to come help.  But it's time to move beyond my false narrative that I have control over as much as I believe I do.  Yes I could wave the barefoot runner into my office and calm him down, cajole the warrior girl off the desk in a room full of adults all aghast, and convince the nimble third grade boy who was laughing at the men in suits from atop the school to climb down.  But  had I no choice to be birthed by a woman who misunderstood what nurturing meant to a little soul.   In a way it feels like I am giving in or maybe up as I am summon the faith and choose another way.  Or maybe this thinking is choosing me?  I grope in the dark for faith and trust and belief in a safe world.  It's a feeling that hides beneath the surface of my logical brain, gaining air through a narrow periscope from which I survey the scene.  But it will come along.  Practically, I am left with the thinking that I can study and maybe save this orchid plant.  I could take it to the local garden store for advice and cure.  I could maybe force it to bloom again!  Or let it go.  Because no matter me, that bloom has lived its life.  Which leaves me lingering in a dream that is my life, and dancing with the ease of a weight lifted and no longer my burden to bear.