When I was in my twenties I used to be very worried that there was no space between my controlling my life and life controlling me. I used to feel like I was losing the battle every day. It took some time to acknowledge that I was making life that question. Am I in control or being controlled? That is not a foolish question. But it is not the only one on which to chart your life. Recently my ex-husband wanted my support with our child, so he did what he does, which is come across as a reasonable person. I bit because when it comes to down to what matters to me, I do not consider anything that he says more important than the welfare of our child. So, he annoys me, but I look at the act like one looks at a mosquito. It sounds like a lot next to your ear, but you can swat it away. What's bothering me now with him is that he's a mosquito that is now thinking himself privileged to come around doing what he does. I was hoping that by now he would be smart enough to notice that we are still tethered together, and that playing the game he plays is not only old, but played out. But no. He insists on being predictable, and now I must do what I can to throw him off believing that I am also predictable. From his standpoint he looks at himself as a victim. I know this because we have had that in common. Once he's doing that, all the power that he has, he uses it from that emotional space. Only one thing can shift him out of that and that is for me to counter his actions with big, bold moves that leave him bleeding. I can't really do this right now, I do not have enough to work with, and such grand gestures are such that when I make it, I expect that he stays down on the mat. A friend who knows this whole story tells me that he will never let this alone. It doesn't matter what I do, he'll keep upping the anti with me. I say, if that's the case, let him up it watching me through a telescope far away from being able to cause me any concern. He can only matter if I let him matter. I have gone up and down about him. He mattered for almost all of my adult life. I am writing now and fully aware that he still matters, or I would be able to write about other things and give absolutely no time to writing this. So I have to do some ego work here as well. Put the thing into perspective. Acknowledge that a bit of hating him soothes my soul for now because I would just like us to get along instead. But getting along makes me too comfortable and complacent, because the moment I relax, he'll stand up and try to kick me. I could leave him in a cage and run, but we are tethered by our child. Are we really? I have to be so careful, I might be writing this thinking that this is about his behavior but its really about mine. Months ago when my relationship with The Towers became something that I did not give a second thought about walking away from, I realized that I made the best decision for me, and it was right. Yet, what was interesting about my decision was that I saw something in myself, a hardness perhaps? I saw what my divorce has done for me.I can see that when I ask for things in my life that I may be relentless. A trait that caught me by surprise. I can admire it in others, but having it gave me pause. I have played up so much of my softness that my hardness, shrewdness I have to learn to accept that in me. I still somewhere don't want to make so obvious a mark on things. However, I also know that ti succeed, I must do so. I must even perhaps make a hole to drive through. These are the feelings and emotions that are my make up now, and I shall continue to write about it here because it is something that I have not even written in my everyday journal as yet. This is the first pace that i feel comfortable to state it in.