Work In Progress

Yesterday in class, the therapists asked if there was anyone there who felt like  they had an excessive need for control.  My hand shot up---stayed up---and started to wave around.  It was a bit like it wasn't attached to me.  I didn't even look up from what I was doing.  I expected that there were a few of us since perfectionism and control go hand in hand, and we were all self-confessed perfectionistas to some degree.   Oddly enough (read...embarrassingly enough), when I looked up, it was just me.  (Wacky, inflatable, arm waving, tube man!  Wacky, inflatable, arm waving, tube man!)  "That's it?  Just one person?  Okay--tell us what it is like, what you think about as someone who wants that much control." It poured out of me:      Well, I plan things. So like, I plan my day, dinner, what I have to do, what needs to get done.  I am not a list person---I know ...

  Fittingly for this time of year....I have homework.  Yesterday was my first day of the Mood and Anxiety Group (MAG) at the hospital and I am slowly starting to fill my three inch binder.  I was told by the end of the class it will be full. I remember my first experience in group. My head felt fuzzy....full of the even hum of radio static.  Every now and then I could tune into a channel and pick up some of the words---other times it was just easier to surrender to the comforting buzz.  The facilitators warn that these next eight weeks will not be an easy ride.  You will NOT feel better until you feel worse.  This is true.  I was sure that the first group I did for 8 weeks was really just to pick up some pointers.  I was fine.  I was out of the hospital.  What I didn't see coming was the deconstruction of my head.  Unlike the slow but constant decline in my mental state...

Today the sound of the cicadas has been replaced with the shhhhhhh of roofing tiles as they slide to  earth and the periodic staccato of a nail gun.  It's an early start --because it is already 38 with the humidex.  They are working quickly and it's a small roof. Still, I wouldn't want to be them.  Whistling carries across the heavy air.   I am reflecting on a friend who is having a hoard of family descend on her house for a summer visit.  We are a lot alike--except that I have a spouse who takes care of most of the cooking when family comes.  She is frantically cleaning things she readily acknowledges no one will notice--and meal planning instead of allowing for a fun family "all hands on" in the kitchen whenever anyone gets hungry.  And trying to control the uncontrollable.   She is my sister perfectionista.....and a gottathinkofeverythingsoitallgoessmoothly kinda gal.   I think that makes ...