In Control. NOT.

The nice thing about a natural disaster is – Okay, that’s not the most sensitive of openers – well, it’s that you are forced to admit that you are not in control of everything.

I spent all day trying to think of ways that it made sense to drive the boys back to Boston tomorrow, despite the fact that we would be passing through several states that have already declared a state of emergency.

I checked weather.com all day.  But no matter how many times I looked at the weather map, I couldn’t get it to say what I wanted it to say.

Then I prayed for wisdom, hoping that God would give me the go-ahead.  No luck there either.

The boys, and I’m sure you’ll find this shocking, were in no hurry to leave their cousins to head home, where we would be starting school a full week earlier than everyone else.

Finally, I called Jeff and asked him if I should go.  He is usually good for weather-be-damned determination.  Instead, he told me to stay put.

So I went to Target (isn’t that what everyone does when disaster looms?) and bought a five gallon gas container and filled it up so we could run my parents’ generator.  And I helped my dad clean out the garage so we could get my mom’s car in there.  And I put away extra bottles of water and ran in to the CVS to get batteries for flashlights.

And I admitted what everyone else has known for quite some time:  Tara does not control the universe.

You already know that?  Well, don’t tell the boys.  They only recently stopped believing that I can see through walls, and they still think I can read their minds and will always know when they lie to me. If I lose control of that illusion, we really may have a disaster on our hands.