In recent years I have become obsessed with perfection within my home. I was driving myself crazy with a need to clean and primp. Friends commented because it was so much not “like” me. Where was the OCD-like behavior coming from? I think I was afraid of it too, but I didn’t want to address it or make waves. I had changed from being a creative, day-dreaming, laid-back artist to a highly focused organizer who was never satisfied with the first design. I convinced myself there were worst things as I made a life out of this odd behavior. This went on for more than ten years.

Today, I look around my middle floor and even take a couple pictures, really seeing it for the first time. The images I see are full of the cluttered, tangled evidence of life. When had I morphed from messy child to cleaning obsessed machine and back? I think I now understand.

I went to court last week. The process of separating myself from someone to whom I had felt “tethered” was progressing and finally becoming reality. The last 16 years were a blur of feeling “out of control.” My life and everything in it from music to travel to expenses and all, was always his decision, his final choice, his last word. I lived a life of not wanting to ruffle feathers, so I always gave in. ALWAYS. Over time, I learned not to give my opinion. I escaped his opinion and control by doing things and not telling him. When he complained, I sat quietly and took the lecturing. The only control I really had in my life was with the housecleaning, so I went at it like a deranged French maid on speed. Nothing was left untouched, unpolished or out of place… ever. When I ran out of things to clean, I moved furniture around and started all over again from another angle or I changed the room color.

Somewhere a while back–and I’ll bet I can pinpoint the exact day because of events that unfolded–I stopped cleaning. Items dropped from my hands where I stood and stayed there in a pile. There was no attempt to make neat piles, no strategizing, no plan. These items and I simply cohabitated and shared the space. I no longer noticed them. When I needed anything, I dug through the piles and found it.

What changed? By leaving a controlling life situation, I regained control for my personal self. My decisions were all mine once again, and my confidence in them was slowly returning. This is a huge need within each of us but so easy to lose, especially if we relinquish control to someone else who seems to need more power than we do. If we allow this to happen, we attempt to compensate by grabbing control of anything we can just to feel alive. I imagine this is how cutters can rationalize scars.

Now, amid the clutter, I am deciding to start my life over with someone new. … someone who has no need to steal my control, someone who likes the artist in me, someone who has so much strength within himself that he needs nothing from me. I will be myself with him and find balance. I know as I learn how to be, I will keep my heart open and allow love to flow. I will ask him to be patient.

No one really knows what life will bring until we try living it and sometimes we learn the hard way by finding what doesn’t work, first. I now know that it is imperative that we somehow move on to find a place where we are free to be who we were born to be, in order to be happy. I hope we can invite people around us who understand this. I hope we all find the courage to change when it is needed. This is what being fully human is truly about. THIS.