Need for Control

Wed.-- Summer Solstice, Gorgeous outside.

My brain has been spinning around this "control" thing for a few days. It seems to be that the longer we know someone, the more we finally see their "control" buttons. Some are more obvious than others: those in-your-face pushy and annoying people. But I think most people you have to get to know for a long while before you see what they really feel a need to have the ultimate say over.

Since I'm a Stay at Home Mom, I know these wo/men pretty well and have seen their control buttons. Try telling any parent, particularly those that build up their lives around their kids, that you're going to do something against their "philosophy."  I mention this because there are women that are subservient to their husbands, show no need for any control over hardly anything, who meekly do everything, willingly, gracefully, and quite contentedly, that will bitch-slap their own mother if she tries to give the kids a cupcake with food coloring in it after the mom has said "no."

Other people are different. Some don't really feel the need to be involved in the small details of their kids' lives, yet are loving and caring parents. It's not something they feel the need to control for as many reasons as there are people in the world. There are others (parents and childfree) who may spend more time dictating their business lives, the cleanliness and details of their car, or their free time and their friends. For many, their religion is something they control. Anything someone is passionate about can become something that they are just. not. willing. to hand over to someone else. That is completely OKAY (you know, with some balance and harming none and that other stuff).

We all need anchors and strongholds. We need those identity ties and those parts of our lives where NO ONE in the world can tell us what we have to do and fuck them when they try. This is my house, my family, my car, my life, my _____.

So what happens when you can't control something that is a natural anchor for you? You feel a need for a well-organized, clean house, but you work so much that you're never home to do it, or are not making enough money to afford to even replace that nasty sofa that you hate. What happens when you can't control something that you've succeeded at for years? Like a teenager? Well, in the old days, disobedient kids had their ears boxed (gah!) and in the house of my pre-teen years, my mom would punch you in the stomach while drunk.

Which brings me to an answer. When people lose control over those anchors, when they feel life rushing past them with no means of securing their own identity, their own importance, their own self-worth, they get depressed, they drink, they fall to addictions, they try with varying degrees of success to gain that control back, sometimes by very drastic means.

I've felt very out of control of myself the last two weeks of pregnancy. I started to get pretty damn depressed and negative. The long list of "can't do" weighs over my head. One of my anchors is my adult autonomy and pregnancy bites deeply into that. Wanna know why I feel the need to get the hell out of town and go on family vacation every few years, with very little fore-warning or planning? Because I have to be able to. Wanna know why I dyed my hair blue last night? Because I have to be able to say "this is my body and my expression of self." And it looks pretty ;)

Control is fluid, an illusion. But to follow your bliss, you have to identify those areas and learn to live in harmony with them.