Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it.  —Lou Holtz

I read this quote the other day, and haven't been able to stop thinking about it. So impossibly easy. So terribly true. I wonder, how it is that this very same thought has never struck me a million times before?

It's easy for me to get lost in a bad moment, conjuring up worst case scenarios at the rate of one per second. My therapist says that when you grew up like I did (in a less than stable environment) that this is often the case. That we anticipate the shoe dropping as a method of protection. Like, if we prepare every second for it, it will be an easier blow to deal with.

But I seem to have suddenly realized that all of this fretting, all of this nervous energy, is at best wasted energy and at worst an accomplice to the "inevitable" disaster.

You see, it also seems that people like me may even subconsciously sabotage a good situation, as a means to end the worrying.

If you have nothing, you have nothing to lose.

I wonder now, how this thinking may have affected my relationship with Levi.

It was recommended that I read a book called How to Get the Love You Want.

I am told that the book suggests that as adults we will recreate a situation that was bad for us in childhood. Sort of like a, get-it-right-this-time kind of a deal.

My mom left when I was little — similarly to the way that Levi left Adrian. Sadly, no matter how hard I've tried, we don't really have much of a relationship today. My mother has another daughter 13 years younger than me, that she shares a bond with, that she provides for (and then some), that she never left. Exactly the way that Levi has a daughter that he provides for and cares about, and a son, my son, that he doesn't do either of those things for.

These revelations have hit me like a ton of bricks. Did I somehow subconsciously know that Levi would leave? Did I somehow subconsciously sabotage our relationship?

I am thankful for stumbling upon that quote. As I process this information, I will remember, "Life is 10 percent what happens and 90 percent how you react to it."