“It’s one of those days,” I said.
Laura and I were drained, but we had to get to a hospital we had never been to, some 30 miles from home. Worse still, we couldn’t bring Liam along, so we had to source childcare last minute at 8:00 AM.
Honestly, when I say nothing was going for us that morning…
I mean it.
Liam crapped himself before we got in the car, every traffic light turned red, and then a black pickup truck cut me off on the motorway — endangering our lives just so he could get off at the next exit.
IT LEFT ME SHAKING.
Not with shock, but rage.
Had I not slammed on the brakes, I would have clipped the tail of his vehicle, and lord knows what might have transpired. It doesn’t bear thinking. I just remember gripping the wheel and hurling curses that would have made Gordon Ramsay wince.
But then something weird happened.
In that whirlwind of rage came a sudden, almost startling epiphany:
I can’t control what other drivers do (or other people for that matter) — I can only control how I react.
For all I know, he might have been rushing to a family member’s aid (I’ve done it a couple of times) or for an important appointment like we were.
Or he could have quite simply been a nob.
🤷♂️
I’m not saying I have become this peace-loving, levitating monk (my heart is far too cold for that), but I have lost one too many days of my life to careless strangers. Days I’ll never get back.
And of all days, I wasn’t about to let it ruin this particular one.
Why?
It was the day Laura and I met our latest son for the first time on the ultrasound screen.
So yeah, I let it go and had an awesome day for it.
BECAUSE THE TRUTH IS, WE DON’T CONTROL NEARLY AS MUCH AS WE HOPE IN OUR LIVES.
Our jobs, the economy, who gets voted in, inflation, our loved one’s questionable choice of lovers…
We have no influence over these things.
What we DO have influence over, however, is our reactions and what we put out into the world.
It’s something Darius discovers in The Divided Region, especially in its latest sequel. I’ve thrown quite a bit of 💩 at him this time — I mean, Milo the Muse did — and watching him navigate life’s chaos makes for a wickedly enjoyable read.
I originally planned to send off the manuscript today, but my proofreader has had to “dash” out for an emergency themselves, so the title announcement will have to wait until tomorrow.
Just goes to show, life happens.
And when life gives us lemons (or bad drivers), one thing that helps nullify its effects is to dive head-first into a story and watch the characters slay wrongdoers in ways perhaps we wish we could do our own. 😈
If you’d like to see how Darius handles adversity — and you’re not afraid of a little bloodshed — you can tag along on his epic journey here:
https://djjwatsonstore.com/products/exiled
DJJW