A bad country song and a really good hip hop song.

Tonight my life is a bad country song.  One of the wonderful ladies on my staff, her dog died.  Another wonderful lady on my staff was in a car accident on the way home.  (I am sure dude that rear ended her was looking at his phone when he did it.)  Then I called my mom.  Lordy, but I will get into that later.  Then when the hubby got home with both kids, they were crying.  That is the makings of a bad country song.  My daughter was still crying up until a half hour ago.  Everyone is ok physically, thank goodness.  So much out of our lives we cannot control.  Is that why my mother has this incessant need to control everything else.  I could tell she was not happy when I called.  She finally unloaded about 5 minutes into the conversation.  I told her almost laughing that she cannot fix everything for everyone as she seems to be driven too.  That, of course, aggravated her, but it is the truth.  For whatever reason, she has the need to fix everything even at the expense of her relationships with her family.  Some might say that is just a mother's love.  I am a mother too.  That is not a mother's love.  It is an obsession.  I do not know what has caused this problem she has, but I wish for her sake, she would accept that we cannot control other people much like my co-worker could not control dude looking at his phone and rear ending her this evening.  So what does that mean for me?  Well, first it is the acceptance that people live differently than I do.  My sister is different.  She makes different choices that I would and clearly my mother would, but there is nothing wrong with that.  My sister lives life in a more reckless demanding fashion.  Does that make it wrong?  Absolutely not!  She has a good life and despite her complaints would tell you that she is happy, I believe.  For so long I bought into my mother's BS of live life carefully and you will have a good life or do this and you will be safe and the bottom line is that it is all BS.  All of it.  There are too many things we cannot control.  Even when we attempt to control all of the pieces that we can, the uncontrollable pieces still dive in and take over.  That is what life is, and I believe that it is hard to ruin life because life is pretty resilient.  We are told (or at least I was all of the time) not to do this or that because it will ruin your life.  I am calling BS to that.  It is too resilient. 
I regret not losing weight earlier.  I was 26 when I finally took control of my health and my eating disorder.  I regret it, but I realized today that I did it because I did not want my mother to have power over me and think for two seconds that all of her badgering about my weight as a teenager (and not more than 10 pounds overweight then if at all) and the hurtful (oh so hurtful) comments about my thunder thighs in any way, shape, or form made me realize I needed to lose weight.  I did it on my time so it was clear it was because of me.  Not her.  I can still guarantee that somewhere in her mind, she takes pride that I am thin and thank goodness she saved me by talking about my thunder thighs and how I had breasts at 9 because I was so fat (which I was not) is what she thinks.  I know the reality. 
It is deep within me to be careful and not take risks.  I was trained to be the safe daughter and not take chances.  My new favorite song has a line that I love.  "Why tip toe through life to arrive safely at death."  Well, Mom, you are tip toeing through life.  You complain about not going on vacations, but you will not go on one.  You complain about never getting masters degree, but I have been out of the house for some time now.  Live life, Mom.  That is a gift I try to pull into to who I am every day despite my inclinations to do the exact opposite.  I spend so much of my time worrying about all of these extraneous things rather than just living and enjoying a moment for once.  Life is pretty fun or it can be anyways.  I am not free of past burdens but I am working on it and hopefully enough that I am able to give my children the gift of actually living a life and not just sitting there watching time go by.  I spent a lot of time doing that.  That is what I regret.  I will never get those years back, but I can utilize this minute and the time I am given in a minute, an hour, or even tomorrow should I have the good fortune to get there.