Surrender.

Three years ago, as my family and I were flying home from Miami, our plane caught on fire during its descent. We landed with one engine to a tarmac full of emergency vehicles and two brave pilots who were visibly shaken.

Three months ago, I was driving home after picking up dinner when the car in front of me hit a cyclist that was going through an intersection. The last thing I saw was a person on the ground, in the middle of the road, and the driver, sobbing uncontrollably beside them.

Three weeks ago, our family was woken up in the early hours of the morning to a loud bang and our entire house shaking. Five kilometers away, a gas leak at a construction site set off a fierce explosion that was picked up on the Richter scale seventy kilometers away. Two people were pulled from the wreckage, eleven people were hospitalized, and many are still not able to return to their homes.

Three nights ago, a young drunk driver sped into the concrete median of our main highway, bounced back across three lanes of traffic before flying over the edge of the overpass and landing on the road below. We were about four car lengths behind him. I had my son and two of his friends in the backseat. The driver remains in critical condition and is facing criminal charges.

I know that there are people out there who have far more intimate relationships with trauma than the average person; soldiers, first responders, humans living in conditions far different from our own. This is their world and honestly, I don't know how they do it.

Because there is something so deeply impactful about proximity to tragedy. To witness the single moment when an entire life is forever changed.

And there's something so unbearably hard about knowing how quickly and violently everything can happen. It's equally hard knowing how little control we have over that possibility.

I can't control what happens to the plane once we step on it.

I can't control if a gas leak blows up a whole neighborhood.

I can't control other drivers on the road.

There is just so much that I can't control. And it highlights for me how much surrender is required just to get through each day.

But it also highlights for me what I can control.

I can control how much I enjoy my life.

I can control how much I love the people around me.

I can control how I use my time and how I take care of myself.

I can control what I contribute to the world.

And this may not seem like a lot but it is the most profound parts of who we are.

As a person who has struggled with chronic worry and anxiety for so much of her life, I am constantly challenged to lean into surrender. Constantly. Nearly every moment of every day happens alongside a quiet voice that whispers in the background..."let go."

And I resist. Nearly every time.

In my defense, I've had decades of learning how to create the illusion of safety.

That being said, I'm also trying.

I'm trying to start with small things and small moments. I'm trying to give myself grace and most importantly, I'm trying to focus less on what not to do (worry) and focus more on what I would like to do (enjoy, love, surrender).

I'm trying to remind myself that, yes, there is so much unknown in creating art and building a business and living a life. But it's also a gift to simply be alive for that unknown.

Bottom line: it's a practice. Like so much of life really is.

Sometimes tragedy happens before our eyes.

And sometimes tragedy helps us to open our eyes.

Gen xo

Gen is an award-winning author, photographer, and storyteller. She is also the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Gray & Granite Magazine -- A Storyteller's Journal.