Witchy Wednesday Writing Prompt: Control

Imagine the wild, wide desert. You are lost. You are thirsty. You are rescued. What happens when you learn to drink from someone else’s palm? Can you find peace in needing someone or something other than yourself? Can you lean into the softness, the slowness? Who are you when you aren’t in control?

Letting someone else be in control of me and/or my life has been a point of difficulty for me for as long as I can remember. I think it stems from feeling like I had absolutely no control over what happened in my life growing up. The way I reacted to the chaos was my only sense of control, and I learned to hold onto that with a death grip. 

It has had both its good and bad repercussions. As an adult, I am organized and self-sufficient. I show initiative to commit to a job or task and I make sure it is completed from start to finish. It also means that while I can be a team player, I do not like it when I am forced into a group a project. I hate depending on others in order to get something done in a timely and efficient manner. I do not trust that others will pull their weight and do their part. I would rather just do it all myself so that there is less important parts outside of my control. I keep a schedule of everything that needs to be done, paid, etc. for each month. I detest being late. I make lists and enjoy checking off items as they are completed.

But, all of that strict organization and control means that sometimes I resent the feeling that I "have" to be in control. Sometimes I want desperately to be able to hand over the reins of control to someone I trust enough to see me and care for me in a vulnerable state. Sometimes I just want to feel and be. No thoughts, no questions. Peace and passion. I think that's why I was so drawn to alternative lifestyles that offered a place for people who thought similarly. Those scenes and relationships are the only ones I have been able to fully release control and lose myself for a little while. It's an incredible feeling when I trust the person enough to just be. Gentle but strong. Power wrapped in silk. It took me quite a while to realize that giving up control did not make me powerless. There is unbelievable power in submitting yourself to someone else's will for a short time.

The Lie of Growing Up

When it comes to our relationships with our parents, do we ever really get to grow up?

I’m adult woman. I've spent almost as much of my life on my own as I did in my parents' home. Why does the thought of being in the house with my mother for six days create such a violently negative reaction? Don’t get me wrong. I love my mother. I would do anything for her. But … we rarely see eye-to-eye on anything.

Our relationship has been comparable to a destructive force of nature since I was old enough to refuse to wear the endless supply of frilly dresses she bought me. I was six years old. Things have only gone downhill since then. We didn't agree on what I wore, what toys I played with, or what activities I wanted to participate in. As I grew older she agreed even less with what I wore, she detested the people I chose as friends, and let’s not even start on how she felt about the few people I dated who were brave enough to come over to my house for a visit. Now … it’s pretty much the same, but she has more to dislike. Now she can add not linking where I live, what I do for a living, and the fact that I do not visit often enough.

I only visit my parents once a year for Christmas, and I’m a ball of nerves leading up to every visit. I should have ulcers for the hours of worry that goes into each holiday “vacation.” I purposefully limit our trips to three days plus travel just to reduce the time for conflict. You see I say reduce time and not reduce the chance of conflict. I know it’s going to happen at some point during the visit, but with only three days, it doesn't happen as frequently.

I think a lot of our continued conflict boils down to the fact that I've changed and she hasn't.

I spent the first twenty something years of my life being peacekeeper in our household. I took the verbal abuse that was dished out, and I held my tongue. My mother is like a hurricane. Once she gets going, there’s no stopping her until she’s done. Growing up, I dealt with that by making myself as unnoticeable as possible with the theory that if she doesn't notice me, she won’t start yelling at me for something. If she wasn't able to pick the fight then she didn't have the opportunity to push my buttons and engage me. Engaging in those fights only left me frustrated and hurt and crying.

I grew up, I moved a little farther away with each relocation, and in so doing slowly distanced myself from the chaos. At this point in my life, I’m just not willing to take the abuse and stay quiet. I don’t sit by meekly. I give as good as I get, but I like to be sneaky about it. I know if she starts an argument and I take the bait, it’s only going to end badly for me. She always wins in those situations. But if I never engage, I take that away from her. Nothing makes her angrier than someone walking away from her attempt at starting a fight. I hang up the phone, and I don’t answer the return calls. I delete the emails and Facebook posts. I disengage before anything can start.

I’m her only child, and I've decided if she wants to keep me in the loop she has to respect my right to make my own decisions even if she doesn't agree with them. I've made good choices and bad choices, but ultimately, I’m the one that has to live with the consequences. I refuse to be controlled and manipulated. I've made calculated decisions in my life to try to alleviate that constant strain, and I've been pretty successful at it overall.

And, yet, here I am feeling my stomach tighten into knots at the thought of being in the house with her for six days. No wife with me to put my mother on good behavior. No car of my own to use as a quick escape route. No support network to act as a buffer between what I know to be true and what I’m sure I will hear her say at some point during my stay. No alcohol or sex to take my mind off of things. 

It’s not a situation I want to put myself in, but I need to be there for more important reasons. It’s something I have to do. I'm not a teenager any longer pushing boundaries and establishing independence. That battle has already been fought. I grew up. An adult child and her mother at some point have to be able to set it all aside and be the friends they couldn't be during the growing period, right? And so I have to tell myself the lie that everything will be different this time. To quote one of my favorite movies and pieces of literature, "I like the pretty lies."