Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Control Freak? I Believe That's Me.

I had an unexpectedly good morning today. I wasn't expecting it to be bad, but I really felt quite well. I went for a bike ride (big deal when you have three kids) and made a lot of phone calls that have been on my to-do list for weeks. When I picked my two older kids up from day camp I was feeling quite in control of my life.

I love to feel in control of my life.

An hour later my son was having a tantrum and the afternoon spun away from me in a hurry. Kids going crazy. Mom yelling and going generally berserk. I roll my eyes at my crazy kids and wonder how they can be so disrespectful and then finally it occurs to me that maybe there's a better way to handle this.

I just have a very hard time giving them space and letting them act like obnoxious little kids. Most of it is normal and we'd all be better off if I could ignore it.

The main thing seems to be that I want to be able to make things right. My oldest child is seven years old and for seven years I've been trying to find just the right schedule, sleep pattern, nutritional balance, way of talking about feelings, so on and so forth .... that will make our lives happy and bright.

Meanwhile - the negotiations for selling our house are going just haywire enough to make us uncertain the deal will make it all the way to closing. And I am changing my eating habits in an effort to lose weight. It's motivated by my recent bout with cancer and an urgent desire to minimize the risk of another chronic illness. Lingering side-effects from chemo are complicating my efforts.

So, you know, I'm working hard to do everything right. And things are still going wrong. I am alarmed by how easily I topple over the edge. Tonight I left the house because I kept wanting to cry. It reminded me of the unrelenting sadness of depression.

I suppose I could be encouraged that leaving the house for a while is helping.

3 comments:

  1. "My oldest child is seven years old and for seven years I've been trying to find just the right schedule, sleep pattern, nutritional balance, way of talking about feelings, so on and so forth .... that will make our lives happy and bright."

    And yet sin, fallenness, sadness, brokenness, always ALWAYS thwarts our best efforts. Sigh.

    Things will not be right, not yet anyways. But they will be right, in the end. (come Lord Jesus come quickly!)

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  2. I suppose this is a dumb question, but where do you GO when you leave the house on the verge of tears? Sometimes I feel like I need a break, but where would I go? A walk in the neighborhood, where the neighbors will see you crying as you walk? I wouldn't want to go to a bar -- too expensive and too dark. The library is too public. Church is locked. Sitting on my own deck in my own back yard would be perfect, but that's too close to the phone, the timer on the dryer, the list of chores, and the questioners.

    So where did you go?

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  3. Good question, Susan. Starbucks. Pretty inexpensive (less than $2) and it's socially acceptable to sit for a long time by myself. I usually bring along my computer and write because that's a stress-reliever for me.

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Thanks for using this space to share your encouraging words.