She is, indeed, my favorite girl. 

It’s 2:30 a.m., and I just woke up about fifteen minutes ago thinking about her. And now with the sound of my downstairs neighbor’s snoring vibrating throughout my bedroom (imagine your cell phone set to vibrate laying right next to you constantly going off; no, I’m not exaggerating in the slightest), I don’t think I’ll be able to fall back asleep for a while.

So, what’s got me all bright-eyed, you’re wondering? A slight panic attack. For the last two days, I have been trying to plan a small afternoon tea for today for my mom’s birthday. Being as though, I am not in possession of my mom’s friends’ phone numbers, I’ve been just trying to invite who comes to mind. Well, at about 2:15 a.m., the names of everyone I’ve forgotten to contact suddenly began to fill my brain, and now it’s pretty much too late to let them know. Oh, no.

Now it will be bothering me all day long. I just want things to be perfect for my mom’s birthday. I always want things perfect for my mom.

Believe it or not, her happiness so often means more to me than my own. But this early morning as I started praying that things will be perfect for my mom, I realized just how little control I have of her happiness. From this distance, all I can really do is pray that she’s happy, which is exactly what I imagine she does for me.

There’s just so much that we have total control over in our lives. But happiness, I suddenly realized, is one of those things. Yeah, things happen to us that aren’t always fair and aren’t always the happiest. But how we respond is totally up to us.

After living in Virginia Beach for about a year and a half now, I have yet to find myself well-adjusted. I haven’t even figured out where I fit into this place. 

And while I don’t imagine I will figure all of that stuff out once the sun comes up, I think I can manage to still be happy in the meantime.