Bringing Order to Chaos, that’s what I do
Or at least that’s how I explain it to myself and others but what it may actually be is trying to impose a measure of my will in any given situation, to prove I have some power.
What causes a control freak, what are the ingredients?
Is it born with you as part of your DNA or is it that which life draws onto your soul?Looking back over my early life I remember many times I felt I had no control and that made me anxious, maybe even rebellious because by damn nobody was ever going to control me again. I’d be the master of my own destiny.
That “don’t tell me what to do” attitude grew in me quicker than a fox on a hunt. At seventeen I just knew I was grown… enough. Had to move out of my parent’s house even before I graduated high school because I knew better, I didn’t need anyone else telling me what to do.
I can remember feeling powerless with a guy in the back of a car, powerless and also ashamed that I’d allowed myself to get into such a position. That wasn’t me or who I was supposed to be. But I was there, not because I really wanted to be, what I had wanted was someone’s time and attention, affection… love. I had no desire to be mauled in the backseat of a car. But a man (or I should say boy) knows exactly what to say to get a woman to respond, just what she wants to hear.
But when a woman stands up for herself and takes back control she’s seen as sinful, brazen, haughty, bitchy. How dare we stand up for ourselves and demand respect? Who do we think we are?
Unfortunately just saying “I am not in control, God is in control” has not been enough for me.
Are we not also created by God to be loved, cherished, beheld? Yes, but not our strength, no, never that. We are loved so long as we stay in our place. This feeling I understand. Of course I do, I’m a woman. I’ve been objectified, talked about as if I wasn’t in the room, used and discarded like a wad of tissue, teased, bullied and perhaps above all, underestimated. Maybe that’s the worst one of all. Having people expect less of you because you’re a woman, think you are not smart, not intelligent, not capable of any sort of greatness in thought or deed.
I’ve never really considered myself to be a feminist, at least not in the same way that others appear to be, I’m not a very militant person, but even I know that every human being deserves, and has the right to demand respect from others. I agree with equal pay for equal work and some other issues.
In my life I’ve seen so many women utterly lose themselves in a man, and not always in a good way, I mean totally lose sight of who they are.
A friend of mine when I was young used to drive with her windows down in 90 degree summer weather, not because her car didn’t have a/c but because her husband forced her to. He wanted to save a few pennies on gas, you see, but she was the one who worked fifty-plus hours a week while he tried to find himself. (He wasn’t looking very hard. I knew just where he was) but she never seemed to get it. He ruled her with an iron fist and her eyes were clouded over with love. Really? That’s love? If I have learned anything it is that we must respect and love ourselves before we can expect it from others. We have to know what it is, enough to recognize what it is and what it isn’t.
And that’s only one example. I saw it many times throughout my life. Girl meets boy, falls in love but doesn’t realize he is only out to use her. Women put up with emotional, verbal, physical and sexual abuse and will stand up and defend the one perpetrating it on her. All in the name of love.
We women love hard and often foolhardy.
So when I speak my mind, when I follow my heart, when I use a gift, I am asserting a measure of control over my life. And maybe at least some of my past experiences have influenced this control thing. (And my Rebel/Free-spirited DNA.)
And like the song says, “God bless the broken road that lead me straight to you”—I can now say I’ve found a man that shows me a free and giving sort of love. I hope he understands me when I try to assert my power, when, as he hovers over me to give me a kiss I sometimes back away. It is sometimes a knee-jerk reaction. I’m making sure that I am in control, that nothing is gonna happen that I’m not okay with. I’ve had man-handling and I’m not okay with it, not ever again.
He loves his mama and his sisters and he treats me with such love and respect and kindness and he brings out the best in me. Maybe he’ll be around when I finally conquer my control issues.