I'm a manipulator.
Not just of people or situations, but of my environment, my time, even my own mind and emotions. I like to be in the driver's seat. Need it. To be in control of a situation is to be in power, and too often I feel powerless.
I yearn desperately to let go. TO JUST FUCKING LET GO. To let life happen around me, fear be damned, faith that it'll all work out or else be a hell of an experience at a minimum.
My relationships with people are tainted by my desire to be in control. Over the course of years, it ruined my marriage. My ex-wife gave and gave and gave and finally couldn't stand to live her life alongside me any more. Not with my inflexibility. Of where we were going to live. What we were or weren't going to buy. Where we were going on vacation.
Why can't I be more adventurous? More devil-may-care, life on a whim, fuck it let's jump.
Because I get scared. Things start to change, to get uncomfortable, to develop in ways I hadn't expected. THIS ISN'T GOING HOW I THOUGHT, OH FUCK! I get flustered and even angry sometimes. So I start to manipulate the situation. To rein it in. I try to convince people to my way of thinking. And I'm well practiced. I'm very convincing. I know how to pull certain emotional strings, and when to use logic versus when to use feeling, to persuade. And I do, because if I don't things won't be RIGHT! Shit has got to be RIGHT. I mean, fuck!
Sometimes I think every word out of my mouth is calculated, aimed with precision, to achieve a certain result. I'm good at picking up strange women in bars when I want to have sex with them. I'm good at moving things along at work, gaining confidence of others, and getting the results I envision. I'm good at running shit. Doing shit. I'm good at building things and analyzing things, and fixing things that are broken.
What I'm not good at is understanding other people's feelings, considering them, caring more about them than about my own. I'm not good at letting go, doing something that seems contrary to my own understanding, just to serve the needs of someone else.
I've sat here and let this pour out of me for about as long as I can, without trying to re-read it and revise it and craft it into a particular message that will fall on your ears in the way I hope or envision. If I don't stop now, this little outburst.. this pressure relief valve, will become just as calculated as everything else in my life.
I want to live without calculation. But I'm afraid.