Control Freak

Just write. Just sit down and put the words on the screen. Sometimes, forcing myself to start at least gets me in the mindset where I find it easier. It’s always been like that for me, in so many areas of life. I seize up, everything grinding to a halt, and then have no idea how to get started again. I know I have touched on this in previous blogs, my writer’s block, my inability to motivate myself to come back to this. I hate sounding like a broken record, constantly harping on the same shortcomings that lead to long stretches without writing. So tonight, I simply told myself to sit here and start writing, until I found my voice. Perhaps it will come, perhaps not.

I did have one realization today, when Sara and I were walking out of the library. I understood why certain things stress me out to a massive degree, while other things don’t bother me at all. It dawned on me that ever since I was a child, I have planned for the worst. I spend a lot of my free time thinking of things that could possibly go wrong, in any aspect of my life, and planning for how I would handle it. As an extreme example, I can remember writing things with my left hand, just in case I ever lost my right one. But even fairly common things, I have always had a backup plan, and a backup to the backup plan. That’s why, under most circumstances, I never panic, I am always solid in a crisis. There have been times when I have avoided collisions in cars doing 80mph, because I don’t panic. When I found out I had cancer, I just cracked jokes and made everyone feel at ease. I often have the most profound sense of déjà vu when certain things happen, because I have rehearsed them in my head. But on the flip side, I think that when something unexpected comes along, when something that I am relying on breaks, when a health complication that I haven’t thought about crops up, when something comes totally out of the blue, it hits me much harder than the average person. It is a combination of shock that I hadn’t prepared for it, and frustration with myself for not having seen that potential outcome.

The last few years have had far too many of those moments.

Now, some of you might be thinking that this is a terrible way to live, always thinking of possible negative outcomes. That I couldn’t possibly be enjoying life as much as I should be. In some ways, you’re right. But I have always found plenty of joy in living. I have spent a lot of time thinking of various outcomes to all the various threads that tug on my life. But I have literally done it since I was a child. It is simply who I am, and how I have always been. And for the most part, that person is happy far more often than not. And I wouldn’t know how to change, even if I thought I could. Not that I really have any desire to. I realize that I’m 41, and guys pretty much lose the ability to make those types of life-altering changes to their persona many years before that age. I can try not to be a total control freak, but it would be baby steps, and nothing more. It would never allow me to completely let go.

I am honestly envious of people who can just completely let go. I have never possessed that skill. I always am in control. Alcohol? Nope. Even when I was a lush (they tell me that I had a lot of fun in my early 20’s), I was in control. Even when drunk, I was the one who handled the police if they came to the front door of a party. They say alcohol only amplifies who and what you are. If you’re an asshole, you make a mean drunk. If you’re happy, you make a happy drunk. I’m a good person, and always in control. Alcohol doesn’t change that, it amplifies it. It’s probably why I could never be hypnotized, just couldn’t give up the control. Hell, it might even be why I have always come out of anesthesia early; my body just doesn’t like it when I don’t have control of my faculties.

It is completely hard-wired into my DNA, control of self, of mind, always on guard. It is why the women I have dated over the years have always felt as though I was their rock. It is why friends have always treated me the same way, always knowing that I would be the voice of reason, no matter how crazy the whirlwind around me. I love that, and love being there in that role for both friends and lovers. I take pleasure in it, and always have, also back as far as I remember.

I don’t have any idea how to wrap this blog up, because I started it without a plan or a roadmap. But obviously I just needed to sit down and write, and the words came. I haven’t kept up the schedule that I wanted to recently, but at least I didn’t go months in between. And now I know that the words are there, even if I have to force them out at first.

Thank you for reading, I adore you all. And when you need that rock solid voice of reason, you know who to call.