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Control

Ah. Yeah. I'm not sure if it was some dad-related experience from my childhood or just a piece of my genetic code, but man, I can really be a control freak.


I have a slightly obsessive tendency for tidying up the house...I have to talk myself down on occasion so as not to get upset with Kristin because she would do something as terrible as, I don't know, leave a blanket on the couch or not hang the kitchen towel in the most drying efficient position. These are real things that bother me. Yeah, I have such a hard life, right?


I used to joke about OCD in regards to all that, but I have someone in my life now who suffers from clinical OCD. My new understanding of that condition has led me to avoid using that term in regards to being overly organized (not to mention to get a bit annoyed by everyone else in the world when they do).


Kristin is not particularly organized or tidy. This has been both a challenge and a blessing (I guess those things are often the same). I've had to learn to just let it go some times, both because it's not fair to Kristin for me to get angry with her over such silliness and, more practically, there simply is no keeping up my standards in relation to her's. Oh, compromise.


I do well most of the time with all of this. Occasionally, though, I get caught off guard. I wake up tired or had a bad day at work and something I probably would have let go sets me off. Then there are apologies and hugs and "I'm sorry" cinnamon rolls. Really, the hugs and the cinnamon rolls are pretty good, so I guess it's not all that bad. The apology thing is a good, humbling exercise, so there's that too.


I've been going to a yoga class once a week since my shoulder injury, as that was a huge part of my recovery and a continuing part of maintaining my health. It's funny how that applies to all this...easing into and through things, breath in, breath out, go easy.


In yoga and in life, I'm not always the best at stretching, but I'd like to think I keep reaching a little further every week.

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