When You Can’t Control All The Things

If you’re looking for deep memoir about love, loss or personal growth, this isn’t it. I’m just a 20-something white girl with a few moans to get off my chest.

I originally wrote this article while I was sat on a 2 hour bus transfer from Split airport to our hotel in Croatia, surrounded by 40 other travellers sat in stony silence as we peered angrily at the heavy grey clouds and rain storms outside the window.

Waiting for our bags at the airport was one of the most painful experiences. None of us had expected to land in this beautiful ‘promised land’ to a 7 day weather forecast of rain and storms, and as we waited for our luggage the air was heavy – chokingly heavy – with bitter disappointment.

Once we returned from our holiday I decided not to publish this post, because as it turned out, we had a fantastic time at our resort and even had a few days of sun too – suck on that, forecast!

However, recent events have angered me again and now I feel like this rant still has a place.

As an INFJ and straight-up A-type personality, I’ll be the first to admit that I am particularly controlling. I plan, schedule and attempt to take control of everything in my life. I can control so many things; the way I look, my career/work, where I live, who I spend time with, what I do. I can control and change all of those things if I’m not happy, and I can also control my own safety (to an extent), by choosing what risks I take in life.

What I cannot control is the weather. And the result of a broken democracy.

The weather, I can just about cope with not being able to control; you get used to it in Cornwall, and you book holidays to ‘sunny places’ like Croatia to cheer yourself up. But when that goes wrong, it screws with my tiny A-type mind.

This Referendum debacle, however, is more difficult to cope with. Yes, a Democracy is probably still better than a Dictatorship, and yes, I am lucky to have had a say with my vote, but damnit, it still feels horribly out of control.

Below are ‘The 6 Stages of Realisation That You Can’t Control All The Things’ that have been happening in my brain recently – first when I thought I was doomed to have a holiday full of rain, and now with my sh*tty country deciding to leave the EU:

Stage One: Denial

When I saw a sneak peek of the weather forecast a week before our holiday I dismissed it as nonsense. Because when is it ever right in Cornwall anyway…

And waking up to the Referendum results felt like I was dreaming – I know I’m not the only one. Who else sat there and thought this must be a joke?

Stage Two: Panic/Escape

Once realisation set in at the airport, I began to panic – not in a screaming/flailing arms in the air way – in a way that meant I was planning ways to escape; a spontaneous ticket to another country, or a bail and go home scenario.

And of course with the Referendum most peoples’ first thoughts of panic were ‘How the Heck do I get off this island? Let’s google how to emigrate to Australia…’.

Stage Three: Rationale

I’m generally an optimistic person, and sooner or later my rational brain kicks in, reminding me that ‘it could always be worse’. On our holiday, we could have had a young screaming child with us, or our holiday could have been ruined by an injury and not just rain. Or we could have been a mile underwater as the result of a plane crash (my brain escalates to morbidity a little too fast…). 

And y’know we could all be stuck in a third world country under the control of a warlord or something – so there’s that.

Stage Four: Anger

After a few minutes of the ‘it could be worse’ malarkey, the little pessimist inside me gets up and is all like ‘Uhh but that’s NOT the situation, and right now I have to deal with the present moment’s pile of crap.’

Cheers little dude.

And so I start to stew in anger, blaming myself for booking a holiday in June and not July or August. Blaming the Croatia tourist board for lying to me. Hating the posters around the airport, mocking me with images of stunning beaches flooded in golden sun.

Feeling hatred towards all the people who voted leave and didn’t have the foresight to see what huge issues it would cause. Silently yelling at the government for allowing this Referendum to take place without proper information for the people. And all that good stuff.

Stage Five: Existential Crisis

It wouldn’t be an Introvert thought process without a good old existential crisis, would it? Hence me writing this post right now; I’ve hit the wall of ‘oh my god I can’t control the world no matter how hard I try’, and the classic ‘what’s the point in life if I can’t have a say in what happens to me’.

Just a whole mess of totally over-dramatised emotions really, but I’m being real here. Don’t pretend you’re above my first world problems.

Stage Six: Acceptance

I assume this will come, as it seems to be the final step in most ‘X Stages of’ list. I just hope it happens within the next few days because there’s nothing worse than being left in a permanent state of existential crisis.

 

So now you can probably see why I didn’t publish this the first time around. A moan about the weather doesn’t quite seem as pressing right now, and I feel a comment about the UK’s nonsense decision today is justified, so there you have it.

I hope some of you relate to all this, and if not, I hope you’re enjoying reading the ridiculous-ness of my inner turmoil right now. Peace!