Accept Defeat. Let Go. Get over it. Move On. Choose your battles wisely.

I remember vividly our 9th floor Brooklyn apartment. The oversized windows, with not other buildings around, allowed in so much light. In the evenings, the setting sun would create magical designs across the floors and walls – often designed through the leaves of the surrounding potted plants. Through these windows, a sprawling view of the NYC skyline – at night lit up like a horizontal wave of tiny stars.

It was here, in this space, that we nurtured our little Aiden’s first year. It was here that the Universe cracked wide open all around me and felt as though I had walked through an invisible curtain and into an entirely new world. Though everything all still looked the same. Kinda. Love felt absolutely new. Fears I’d never considered took hold. Things that were so important before that first breath suddenly became completely irrelevant. Obligations that had shaped my life before that breath now seemed like burdens and I couldn’t seem to learn quickly enough the things that now seemed to be everything.

And in that, there was Gavin. My partner-in-life. My bestie. My forever home. My guy who could not, for the life of him, seem to figure out how to snap the crotch on the little onesie’s! This became like nails scrapping along a chalk board to me. Aiden hung out in a diaper, or not-snapped onesie all.day.long. My bestie wanted Aiden to wear gold necklaces & bracelets from Guyana – as was his tradition. I thought this was an awful idea – a choking hazard! I wanted Aiden fed one way, Gavin wanted to feed him another.

This was 2009. The housing market had just crashed; people were losing their homes & jobs. This put a strain on Gavin’s business and we were lucky enough to have the stability of my job – so Gavin stayed home those first couple years.

It was here that I learned that letting go had absolutely nothing to do with letting go of anxiety, of caring, of stress, of worry. It had everything to do with letting go of my perceived control on whether or not Aiden’s onesie was snapped. This shift of perspective was everything. Trying to let go of emotions & feelings turned into an impossible task for me, but letting go of my ownership of an activity was totally possible.

With this, I began a ‘litmus test’ of questioning to assess the problems urgency, priority and my ownership. For example, when I’d find my mind disturbed and fixated on a problem, I’d cycle through a series of questions: ‘is there imminent danger?’, ‘what is the realistic probability of this leading to a greater problem?’, ‘is there another side to this that I’m not seeing clearly at this time?’, ‘is the worry to reality ratio truly accurate?’, ‘can I take ownership of this situation?’, ‘can I relinquish ownership of this situation?’ and so on. This gave me a foundation on what to fixate on and what to let go.

This did mean that some(all)times Aiden ran around with an unsnapped onesie (and survived!), he learned to eat my way and Gavin’s way – and he grew into an excellent & adventurous eater, we did not put jewelry on Aiden. It also meant that when I had opinions I felt strongly about, Gavin was more willing to listen and compromise with me; and I him. And yes, it also meant my anxiety & stress automatically reduced greatly – if not all together.

The feelings & emotions? Well, they just disappeared once my perceived hold on a problem disappeared.

Through this, I learned that I can not let go of worry directly. I can only loosen my grip on what I perceive I have control of, starting with one onesie at a time.