Control

What a joke

When I was a kid, I obsessed about not losing control. I took chances, but I always pulled back whenever things looked like they might get risky. Whenever I ran out of breath, I’d stop and wait for my chest to settle down before going on. I never wanted to need help or admit I couldn’t do anything, even though I was the clumsiest creature roaming the planet.

I never stopped taking risks and never stopped pulling back to make sure I wouldn’t lose control. The fear both consumed and propelled me.

Not until I began writing Turtle did it occur to me that my dread wasn’t about going nutso out of nowhere—it was about losing what little autonomy I had. Someone else dictated what to wear and eat, how to look, feel, and react. I was forbidden intimacy, pushed toward extrovert-cy, pronounced stubborn, inconsiderate, uncooperative, willful, inflexible, selfish.

No wonder no one wanted to be my friend or ask me out. I was rigid, the ultimate party pooper. I refused to have a good time even when everyone was having a blast.

All true, from the norm perspective. I never dared let my guard down, ever vigilant to not look stupid or let someone take advantage of me. I might have been girl beautiful, but I was body broken and spirit restrained. All it would take was one mishap and—and what? What would have been so terrible if I relaxed, went along to get along? Learned to lighten up and play a little? What was I so afraid of showing?

That I was crippled? Oh yes. Not allowable, not socially acceptable; hell, the word can’t even be uttered anymore. But I non-know a time when I didn’t feel the difference, didn’t have a ready excuse to cover my ineptitude, a clever quip to disguise, dismiss, deny why I couldn’t… whatever. Stay on my feet. Keep dancing. Finish the game. Hit the ball or at least dodge the ball. Keep going after the last set, remember what I’d said to get the laugh, make small talk with the other mothers, push through just a few more hours….

I could go longer if I spent my energies on mental rather than physical activities, but no matter what the situation or circumstance, I ran out of forward motion at some point every day. Tom was the first to notice, “Your switch has gone off.” I’d be going strong all morning and deep into the afternoon until, seemingly out of nowhere, I was done, over, finished. Focus blurred. Attention spanned out. Retention evaporating as my or anyone else’s words hit the air. My worst nightmare come true, every single, solitary day.

I lost control.

And though life continued around me, I was a felled tree. Every bloody day. For no reason. ‘Cause, come on—it wasn’t as if I was crippled or any other non-applicable euphemism: handicapped, impaired, disabled. I’d been told and told and told, the truth hammered into me since babyhood. Nothing was wrong with me. I simply had to make sure I didn’t lose control over my minute-by-minute functionality—

… or my mouth, thoughts, or reactions. What if somebody realized I was a fraud, a phony of the worst kind, a bogus being, a complete fake in their very midst? What if those children-theater mothers realized I was a man in the ladies’ room? What if the PTA moms saw I was a guy eavesdropping on their girl talk? What if anyone, everyone, family, friends, people-at-large recognized I was another bored husband-figure waiting for the shopping to be done, the guests to leave, the goodbyes to wrap up, the chattiness and cattiness to please-god end.

Tom got to be anti-social with a book in the living room. How I longed to pull out my own Matt Helm volume or, better yet just lie down and not sleep.

I’m better these days. I’ve learned how to decompress easier and quicker. I can program my mind to drop off now without the comfort of snoring to my left, without needing to dissect the days’ dumbasfucks or console myself with glimmers of no-one-knows. There was a safety to my marriage, for all its challenges. He knew, I knew he knew, and it was all right. The reverse was just as true: I knew about him, he knew I knew, and that was okay, too.

He knew from the day we met that I’d never be healthy. I knew he’d never hold it against me and would help keep my secret. All my secrets. And my control.

I also knew he’d never change his wants, needs, or life for me… and he knew I’d never hold it against him and would keep his secrets until no one was around to care anymore.

We both knew neither would ever leave the other.

Until he did.

Tom would have been seventy-two this month. He died, like his mother, on the twenty-eighth—one month and one day after my twenty-seventh-day-of-the-month birthday.

I lost all control that day. Even though I eventually wrenched it back, it was never the same. People know now that I’m crippled. That I’m a man in the girl’s bathroom. That I’m losing control in so many ways over so many things. Some I’m just as glad to release. Some… no. I listen for the cat’s gentle snuffling, sigh when a housemate drowses down the hall, smile when someone saws wood loud enough to waft across the darkness.

Fourteen years.  S’not funny anymore. Damn, I miss that Sonovabitch.