Control is an illusion
on realizing I cannot muscle my way to a certain future.
My mother is full of handy phrases, little sayings you can turn over in your palm like a worry stone. The one I heard most while growing up?
“Patience is a virtue.”
I’ve never been particularly patient, you see.
As a kid, my impatience was all about playtime and dessert. Now, it’s woven into every corner of my adult life—this sucking, needful energy for things to be on plan and on time.
My impatience makes me forget that I cannot muscle my way to a certain future. That even if I were to try, the most transcendent parts of my life have come without planning, without my forcing them into being.
***
In August, my partner and I moved to a new home. A charming 97-year-old duplex, the top floor ours. There are stained glass windows. A sun-soaked indoor patio. Massive sugar maples and flowering dogwood trees outside.
It’s also twice the size of our last place, catapulting us into a wider day-to-day existence but with the same dinky furniture. The last month has been a crash course in how to minimize echo and maximize coziness when a house is half-empty.
Recently, my sister was trying to help me feel better about all this. She pointed out that moving in is better than moving out—at least now, there’s no hard deadline. We can take our time.
She meant this as a comfort. I’m not quite feeling it that way.
You see, I have friends with beautiful spaces that almost feel like they grew up out of the ground that way. Perfectly organic. By which I mean, imperfect and layered. Human and lived in.
And this is what I so badly want: a cozy, eclectic home filled with bespoke objects I’ve collected over the years. The sort of home that builds itself. Slowly, over time.
But it turns out this vision is not nearly so romantic when you’re waiting for the magic to appear and in the meantime walking through half-empty rooms, feeling like a Victorian ghost in your own home. So instead, what has been happening is far more manufactured than I’d hope, simply because I want the vision now.
I’ve made list after list of the furniture we “need.” I scour Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, all the local seller groups. I’ve sent “Is this available?” so many times that I accidentally messaged the same seller three times.
(It wasn’t available, by the way.)
I go to three different thrift stores at least weekly, armed with a tape measure. I’ve brought home so many ill-fitting frames from Goodwill, they really ought to install a revolving door to help me make my returns faster.
Is it coming together? Sort of. Am I having fun? Lol, no.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart,” said Rilke, “and try to love the questions themselves.”
Here’s the truth I’ve been avoiding…
The best things in my life have come when I wasn’t in control. When I can open myself to a state of possibility and surrender, that’s when wondrous things happen.
That’s actually how we ended up in this beautiful home. It was my favorite of the places we saw, but someone else claimed it before we could. My partner was understandably antsy to sign for a place at least a month before we were set to move, but I knew we’d find the right thing in time.
Only because we waited did we not lock ourselves into another lease on the same July morning that our current landlord called—the other tenants had fallen through, and the place was ours if we wanted it.
So why do I try to force my life to follow predetermined timelines?
I believe it goes like this: when I make a plan, I give myself the comforting illusion of control. I map out the steps and suddenly I’ve signed a contract with god*: if I follow the steps, I’ll get to where I want to be.
When I fail to follow those steps (because I lose interest, because my PMDD hits, because the plan didn’t make sense in the first place), I have the perfect tool to bludgeon myself with.
Meanwhile, I’m the one who made the plans. I’m the one bludgeoning myself to begin with. No one else says I need to follow this timeline for the dream to come true.
So I’m dreaming differently now. Dreaming about the what and the why, not the how or when.
“We create an open space to allow it,” Rick Rubin says of our creative practices.
There must be emptiness for movement to occur. Void space for abundance to flow into.
Last week, I stopped trying to plan it all out and simply kept my ears and eyes open instead.
What do you know? I found the perfect rug on my street—someone was throwing it out on Bulk Trash Day. I absconded with it, stain treated the paw prints running across its surface, and now it sits proudly in my office, looking like it always belonged there.
On Saturday, I did a cursory check of Facebook Marketplace’s “free stuff” section, with no particular find in mind. A funky table had been listed 45 minutes prior, an address listed for curb pickup with the request that you just come get it if you want it, I won’t be responding to messages as to if it’s still available or not.
I raced the 15 minutes across town, oscillating between hope and acceptance that it’d already be gone. I reached the cul-de-sac and started to laugh. There she was. My new table. Completely unplanned, one of my favorite things we own now.
I’m learning to trust that this house will build itself, layer by layer, all in its own time. I just have to create the open space to allow it.
Because the truth is, it’s not about seizing control but about stepping aside—about letting things unfold in their own strange way. The same is true of creation itself: the work takes shape not through force but by trusting the silence, by allowing the gaps to fill themselves, knowing that what belongs will always find its way into place.
For now, my mantra is as follows: all in due time ♡
**********
*Universe. Higher power. Whatever. As someone who was raised Catholic, I’ve done my own tedious work to get over my distrust towards the concept of god. I love that dude now. To me, god is nature, and me, and everything else I can’t possibly understand. Pretty cool!
Honey’s Toolbox is your weekly go-to for filling your creative cup and putting your ideas into action—from prompts to spark your imagination to gentle nudges that get you moving. Grab a few tools my friend, it’s time to start tinkering alongside your creative spirit.
1. Sign up for Poem of the Day
from the Poetry Foundation. An excellent way to get a dose of poetic beauty daily. To get you started, here’s a favorite of mine: Ada Limón’s “What It Looks Like To Us and the Words We Use:”
2. Listen to noughties pop
I am in search of the perfect late 90’s, early aughts playlist and maybe you can help me.
The vibe I’m after is driving home from soccer practice in your friend’s mom’s minivan and you’re all scream-singing along with Britney at the top of your lungs.
Here’s one Spotify made me as a daylist, which is pretty good: nostalgia bachelorette party wednesday afternoon. Other faves include 2000s bad bitch energy and late 90’s and early 2000’s hits.
3. Make themed photo albums
A wonderful way to reminisce while simultaneously witnessing patterns in what you capture.
Google Photos makes it super easy: simply plug in a keyword for what you want to find and see what populates. This is how I made the photo spreads of all my various work locations around the world for this post—I simply searched for “laptop.”
4. Give old plants new life
In the same vein of filling this new spacious space, I’ve been trying to pull a Jesus and miraculously turn one plant into many. Here are two ways I’ve found how:
Dry your flowers. Flowers can have an endless life of beautifying your home if you dry them before they get wilty and sad! Simply take them out of the vase while they still look good, and hang them upside down somewhere dark and dry with decent airflow for a few weeks. I like tying mine to spare coat hangers in a roomy closet.
Propagate your plants. Why buy a new plant for $10 or $20 when you can just turn your already massive plant into 3-5 smaller ones?! Here’s a quick guide. This week, I’m propagating my reverse spider plants and monsteras. Wish me luck!
That’s all for now.
Talk soon,
Katie
"The best things in my life have come when I wasn’t in control." I feel this so strongly too! And then (try to) laugh gently at myself every time I slip back into trying to control things again.
At least from a far, it seems dreamy, Katie. I particularly love the hammock!