Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 02:55:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ebrulf@aol.com
Subject: Dana K. Scully: Control-Freak? 1/1

TITLE: Dana K. Scully: Control Freak?
AUTHOR: Damian "Ebrulf"
EMAIL ADDRESS: ebrulf@aol.com  Send comments here, please!!  Pretty please
with sugar on top?  I'll gladly accept anything but I would really like it if
someone told me how good (or bad) my characterization of Scully was.
 Thanks!!
SPOILER WARNING: none
DISCLAIMER:  I don't own XF; this is for fun (and the occasional venting of
teenage angst) and not profit.  CC, 1013, and Fox own XF and M&S, etc. ad
nauseum.
RATING: G whadaya expect?  I'm a minor! :-)
CLASSIFICATION:V, a tiny dose of A, I guess.
SUMMARY: A character study of Scully.  She reflects over how she views
herself. Her name is never mentioned.  It could be viewed as a journal entry,
or as her thoughts as she's driving through DC traffic (although then it'd be
interspersed with colorful cursing!).
DEDICATED TO: My friend and "chauffeur", who, besides driving me around
everywhere (because he has a license and I don't!) talks with me and
listens...about things *other* than our respective exes and sex! (Inside
joke.) :-)

Dana K. Scully: Control Freak?
by Damian "Ebrulf" (ebrulf@aol.com)

I just realized something about myself.

I'm a control-freak.

It's strange, to think of myself like that.  "Control-freak."  It brings to
mind pictures of an obsessive husband who refuses to relinquish the remote
control; a picture of a mother who refuses to let her children grow up; a
neurotic cardiologist who needs everything planned out.

But, in the end, that's what I am.  I am a study in "control-freakishness".

It's not that I want to control people; no, certainly it's not that.  It's
simply that I want to control myself.  I want to control what will happen to
me.  If something happens, I want to know that it's because *I* decided to
let it happen.  I don't want to feel as though someone is the puppet-master
with me as the puppet dangling helplessly from the strings.

My control-freakishness translates into my real life.  I have a certain time
when I wake up; I have a certain order to my room; I have a certain order to
the way I do my work.

And yet, I have wanderlust.  An itch in my veins, a longing for change, for
spontaneity.  Perhaps the best analogy for my life would be a sonnet; there
is a certain rhyme and rhythm that I must follow, and yet within these
confines I have and exercise complete freedom.

I wandered a lot as a child, I suppose.  Here and there, finally settling
down.  But I still long to see the world.  A change in scenery, a change in
weather patterns--something new, something strange, something to adapt to and
learn.

A juxtaposition.  Maybe that's what I am--a permanent juxtaposition.  A lust
for control and spontaneity in one.  I can't stand stagnating.  I feel like
unused water, lying still in the sun waiting for mosquitoes to lay eggs.
 That's what I'm afraid of: stagnating.  So I like spontaneity.  An
unexpected movement here and there; like wearing tennis shoes with a skirt or
jogging in the rain.  To keep me fresh and alive.

At the same time, I can't stand losing control.  I *need* control of my life.
 Lately it seems like I've had very little of it.

Relationships, I've learned, are the worst places for a control-freak of my
peculiar variation to be in.  A control-freak who doesn't want to control
other people, but wants to make sure she stays the master of her heart and
her emotions and her destiny.

That's what love *isn't* about: keeping your heart and your life.  For what
is love but giving away a part of yourself that you can never get back?  It's
like handing a part of your heart to a person; and you don't know whether the
person you gave that part of you to will treasure it and keep it safe--or
throw it to the ground and walk all over it.

I'm afraid of the word Love.  Funny, that.  How there are so many things that
I'm not afraid of, which I rightly should be, and a monosyllabic word
instills such fear in me that I start feeling suffocated.

I was claustrophobic as a child.  Not severely claustrophobic, but enough to
never choose the tiny hall closet as a hiding place during Hide-and-Seek.
 That's what I feel like when someone mentions the word "love" to me--I am
once again that little girl in the tiny hall closet, unable to breathe amidst
the winter coats and the shoes and the darkness.

I had a relationship where the guy told me he loved me very early on in the
relationship.  It scared me.  I think I replied with something to the effect
of, "Uh...sure.  I need to go now...I think I smell something burning."  Not
exactly articulate, nor very reassuring to the poor guy on the other end of
the line.

But I was feeling cornered, claustrophobic.  What else was I supposed to do?

I felt...blackmailed.  That's what it was: emotional blackmail.  I don't say
the word "love" easily.  So I feel insulted when someone says that word to me
so easily, as though it were merely a more intense version of the word
"like".  As though we were in high school again and saying, "I like you a
lot," but instead we say "love" because it sounds more mature, more devoted.

I hate being lied to.  And someone telling me that they love me feels like
the ultimate lie.  I would rather receive the adolescent "I like you a lot".
 It feels a lot more honest.  Saying "I love you" at the right time to the
right person can be wonderful; saying it at the wrong time feels like a cheat
and a cheap attempt and wringing more commitment out of one's partner.

It's horrible being a control-freak, sometimes.  It's great, at others.
 Throughout my life, I've been the focused one, no matter where I was--at
school, at home, wherever I was.  I had everything planned out.  I was going
to move, I was going to get so-and-so job at so-and-so place with so-and-so
amount of pay.  Since I was very little I've thought this way.  I've gotten
through life very well so far with this sort of mentality.

I had a friend who once said, "I have some advice for you.  Stop planning
everything out.  Because no matter how well you plan, something always
happens that screws you up."  Sound advice, but I can't accept it for some
reason.  I can't accept that I should just "go with the flow."  It sounds
so...helpless, so weak.  I can't help but think that if I go with the flow, I
will eventually be dashed against the rocks.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not a horrid old hag who wouldn't ever do anything
just for a thrill.  Of course I would; I'd try most things at least once.
 But, as I've said before: a sonnet.  Rigidity, but within those walls is
freedom.  I do the unexpected at times.  When I was younger I went through "a
phase" where I was the complete anti-conformist.  Because I was a girl, I
deliberately walked like a guy.  Because I was Catholic, I was determinedly
scientific.  And I would often do things on the spur-of-the-moment, for the
adrenaline rush.  I went roller-blading, on a whim.  I hurt afterwards, of
course, but it was a thrill, and unexpected.

But, my friend was right.  Something always happens.  My life is proof.  My
world has changed; I have changed with it.  And still I persist in
controlling myself.  Why?  Because it's safe.  Because I need it...because--I
don't know.  I just need that control.  It keeps me sane; it keeps me
centered.  Without the control I have over myself and my emotions, and the
more tenuous grasp I have over my destiny, I would go insane with
helplessness.

END

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This was inspired by a talk that I had with my friend today
as we were going home from seeing a movie.  We were talking about life, and
what we wanted out of it, and the talk turned to what we wanted out of
relationships. I wanted to thank him for that quote that I put in here, the
"Stop planning everything," one.

I think Scully really is like this, the sort of person who has a slight fear
of giving up control and her heart, and would not like to hear the "L-word"
too early on in a relationship because it makes her feel trapped, but would
love well and give up her control when she feels that it's right. This story
is sorta auto-biographical, which is partly the reason why the details are so
vague.  It was written and sent in less than an hour; it's the sort of thing
that you just type it up then you send it and pray.  BTW, this story is also
dedicated to all the people out there cursed with this peculiar brand of
"non-control-freakishness/wanderlust".  It sucks sometimes.  Thanks for
reading, everyone.