Control

The first recollection I have of falling in love with Control was the day I successfully played hooky from the sixth grade. I wish I could recall the specific circumstances under which I endeavored to do something so risky and, I might add, quite out of character. I was a rule follower for one thing, and for another, the nuns were capable of doling out severe punishments for much lesser transgressions. I can say with certainty I was attempting to avoid some dreaded unpleasantry.  

Most kids got into trouble for talking. Not me. I got into trouble for not talking. There’s a name for it now—selective mutism—but in the 60’s and early 70’s the term used to describe me was “shy”. It’s considered a legitimate disability these days, and teachers actually have to HELP you if you have it. Back then teachers only knew how to make it worse. My sister, Lisa, had it too, and we both recall the nuns getting so angry because they couldn’t Control us, couldn’t make us talk no matter what they threatened or how they badgered.

"Are you a baby? Huh? Do you wanna go down to the kindergarten where the babies are?"
"Do you know the answer to this question? Yes? Then stop nodding and answer, please. Well, you're not answering so you must not know it. Who can tell Celia what the answer is?"

I can’t ever remember wanting to go to school. The nuns could be bullies and I suspect, probably got together around the dinner table each night, thinking up ways to humiliate children. They delighted in catching students committing acts that would surely send them to hell. In fact, the following year, Sister Michaeline called me up in front of the class along with Donna Repaci, because we were guilty of hiking up our skirts in an effort to be more attractive to the boys.  Donna and I were told we would land ourselves in Hell and the fires would burn us up to our skirt length. Sister measured our bare legs with the yardstick so everyone could attach a horrifying visual to their imaginations. I got off relatively easy; I had only to unroll the band at the top of the skirt. Sister forgot about me because poor Donna, in a cruel twist, was accused of wearing lipstick and was sent crying to the bathroom to wash it off. I, at least, was able to skulk back to my seat. I remember Donna Repaci’s lips and I know for a fact she did not wear lipstick; her lips were dry and tended towards a white sort of dryness. In those days, white lipstick was the style, hence the nun’s assumption. The bottom line is this—most of the nuns at Corpus Christi School during my tenure there did not especially like children; what they did like was being in control of children.  

Miraculously, no one called home to find out why I hadn’t come to school. That day, despite the dark, damp, spider-webbed stairs of our bulkhead, I was safe from embarrassment and condemnation to hell. For six hours I was in control of what I did and thought about, what time I ate my bologna sandwich and Ring Dings. I had taken with me the flashlight from the junk drawer in the kitchen, and the Wuthering Heights book I had stashed in my bookbag to keep me company along with my imagination. I liked being in control of my own life. I hold those few hours of silent protest as the genesis of various transgressions to follow in high school, college and young adulthood, sins both venial and mortal. 

When I became a mother, Control became an extension of my anxious self, and the quiet mousiness with which I had lived my life BK (Before Kids) was considerably reduced. In my defense, Control meant my kids wouldn’t get hurt or die. There were times I followed Max’s school bus on its route to Maple Hill Elementary School, because I had heard the bus driver tended to floor it when she drove down the country road past the Buffalo farm. Olivia protested vehemently each time I walked her to friends’ doors so I could lock eyeballs with an actual adult before ninth and tenth grade sleepovers. Cliff bore the brunt of most of my obsession with Control; he was my only child for six years and needed protection every moment. Having Down syndrome meant a particularly specific kind of vulnerability. I must have appeared terribly pathetic to the preschool principal watching me peer through the rectangle of glass in the door, unable to return to my car to drive home unless I knew for absolute sure that my baby was not crying, scared and feeling abandoned by his mother; after a week of failing to reassure me, she offered me a classroom aide job in the room across the hall.

My kids have grown into adults, at least in the chronological sense, and I have had to let go of my companion more and more so as not to alienate them.  They sigh and shake their heads when I do things they wish I wouldn’t do. I bought a safety device with built-in GPS for Olivia to bring on her walks from her apartment to the UMass Boston campus. I felt less worried because all she has to do is press a button and the police/fire/ambulance will find her within minutes and save her from the unsavory figure in dark clothes following her home. In her own bid for control, I noticed it was still in its box when I stopped by her apartment recently. Max, who is deathly allergic to tree nuts, has had an almost cavalier attitude about wearing MedicAlert jewelry. He won’t do it. Luckily MedicAlert makes small silver bars for stringing to sneaker laces, and I’ve attached the bracelet he won’t wear to the strings of the nylon sling pack he carries around. Every six months, the expired EpiPen inside is switched out for a new one when he isn't looking.

I’m not completely over the control that Control has over me; I may never be, but it’s getting better. My goal is to land my helicopter for good by the year 2023. Thank goodness Cliff is still reasonably okay with my sneaky machinations. It’s easy to pull the wool over his eyes, though. I’m proud to say I recently left him overnight with Max when Ken and I attended a wedding several hours away. Naturally, I left a 15-point set of instructions, followed by several texts that started, “Just in case…”

It’s a step forward.

To my knowledge, none of my kids played hooky in our bulkhead, but they’ve gotten into other types of trouble through the years in spite of my vigilance. I’m glad for it, in retrospect. I have learned, albeit a bit late, that Control is only useful to a certain extent. I’m slowly coming to accept that all I am truly capable of is Influence, Guidance and Opinion; the rest is up to God and Fate.