Control has been my best friend and my worst enemy.

The notion, even when manufactured, that there is some way to walk in the puppeteer’s shoes and make the marionette dance is a great relief and an overwhelming burden.

A sense of control in an uncontrollable world has been the fresh carrot in front of this horse’s face for longer than I can remember.

When certain coding is imprinted onto a brain during development, the trajectory of a person is almost preordained. If the notion of safety and security is permanently removed, the eyes never stop scanning. The head is always on a swivel. Like stealing a chipset from a motherboard, this individual is left spinning in place, wary of what’s waiting in the shadows.

For those of us who have seen the dangerous and deadly aspects of this human experiment, there is little fun, excitement, or joy wrapped inside the concept of spontaneity. Reliable patterns, routines, and habits are the weighted wheels that keep the roller coaster cart from careening off the tracks.

So, when an unanticipated universal hand surprises me by ruffling my neatly combed metaphorical hair, a severely defective fight-or-flight response system gets quickly and easily overloaded.

Find flow and go with the grain. Learn to release, and accept the unexpected as variables are presented, even when bombshells detonate. Resist the need to dictate every part of the process.

Breathe.

This is a prescription more easily written than filled. But setting an intention is always the first step, and right now I’ve got some serious stairs to climb. Hopefully, the view is what I’d hoped. See you when I get to the top.

Adolescence Interrupted