You Can't Control What Happens

But you can choose how you respond when life goes sideways

The older I get, the more I realize that life isn’t something you control as much as something you respond to. You can plan and prepare and do all the “right” things. And then something wildly unexpected shows up anyway. Sometimes it’s scary. Sometimes it’s inconvenient. Sometimes it’s just deeply, absurdly embarrassing.

What I’ve learned is that in those moments, the one thing that actually belongs to me is my reaction. I can spiral, catastrophize, and let it ruin my day… or I can decide how much power it gets. Lately, I’ve been trying not to give it much.

Which brings me to two recent moments that tested that philosophy: one that could have been serious, and one that was mostly just mortifying. In both cases, I chose not to wallow. I laughed, handled what I could, and moved on.

First up: the time a bat flew into my car.

Back in September, we were driving through a nearby neighborhood at dusk with the windows down when a bat flew into the car, landed in my hair, and—after I screamed and swatted at it—ended up on the dashboard.

Let that sink in. A bat flew in my car! And it got in my hair!

Thankfully, I wasn’t driving—if I had been, we might not be having this story. And somehow, the bat only touched me, not my husband or my daughter in the backseat. Once we realized what had happened, my husband pulled over, we flung open the doors, got my daughter out, and poked the stunned (but very much alive) bat until it flew away.

We continued toward home; I was shaken and freaked out, but figured I would just pour myself the largest possible glass of wine as a reward for surviving the ordeal and move on with my life.

But my ever-practical husband encouraged me to call animal control, whose response was, “Well, do you have the bat?”

Wait, I was supposed to keep the bat? Who the hell would keep the bat? And how?

Well, since I didn’t keep the bat, it was strongly recommended that I report to the ER to start the rabies vaccine. If I had kept the bat, animal control could test it for rabies. But since I didn’t have the bat in my possession, they had to assume it had been rabid.

So at 9 PM, I found myself at the ER, having to tell multiple medical professionals the story over and over again (every single one of them was freaked out and had the same reaction to the idea that I should have kept the bat, which was quite vindicating), ended up with what would be the first of several shots, and went home.

The next two weeks turned into a logistical nightmare—not dangerous, just maddening. I never had any signs of a bite or symptoms of rabies, but everything else went wrong: hours-long ER waits, shots scheduled on exact dates, and frantic calls from the health department because the first nurse had missed a step. Which meant more trips, more needles, and one lingering question: who exactly is out here keeping the bats that fly into their cars?

I survived, I got the shots, and I walked away with nothing but a good story and a healthy distrust of open windows at dusk. Which brings me to a second moment—far less dangerous, but potentially much more embarrassing.

Just before the holidays, I decided to wear my emerald green velvet jumpsuit. I’m not a big jumpsuit person, but this one is a vibe—festive, a little out of my comfort zone, and something I usually break out once a year for a fun but still work-appropriate look.

Important detail: it has a zipper that runs from the crotch to the bust.

On a quiet weekday before Christmas, I wore it to work, felt cute, and ducked into the bathroom before my first meeting. (You know, the classic jumpsuit experience of fully undressing just to pee.) As I zipped it back up, the zipper broke.

The zipper that holds the entire outfit together. There was a belt, but it was purely decorative at this point.

I couldn’t panic, despite the fact that I was now a walking dress code violation. My entire front was exposed. And I was still trapped in the bathroom.

So I went into crisis-management mode: tugged the fabric into place, folded my arms over my chest, and beelined back to my office along the route with the fewest people. Mercifully, it was early, and I didn’t run into anyone.

Once inside, I grabbed the zip-up sweatshirt I keep for cold offices, threw it on, and headed to my first meeting. At least now, I wasn’t flashing anyone.

The women in my first meeting clocked it immediately: a sweatshirt with green velvet pants is not my typical work vibe. I could’ve played it cool. Instead, I told them exactly what happened. Because honestly? It was way too funny to keep to myself.

During a break, I went into triage mode with safety pins, held it together for a few more meetings, then rearranged my schedule and went home to finish the day virtually.

The now infamous jumpsuit. Was this before or after the safety pin intervention? I’ll never tell…

Honestly, I was proud of myself for not panicking. It was inconvenient and potentially mortifying, but mostly just funny. I handled it, adjusted, and moved on.

And if going home hadn’t been an option, I had some alternatives: a Target two blocks away and a friend who apparently keeps an entire spare outfit in her desk. Which feels like information you only learn after surviving something like this.

Here’s what I know now: life is not waiting for you to be perfectly composed, fully prepared, or wearing an outfit with a functioning zipper. It’s going to happen anyway.

So when something goes wrong—when it’s inconvenient, embarrassing, or wildly unfair—I get to decide what kind of woman I’m going to be in that moment. The one who spirals… or the one who handles it, laughs about it, and keeps going.

I don’t control the chaos. I control what I do with it.

Love,

Amanda