One of the most interesting things I have learned about myself in recent years is that I am a micromanager. That is, I have a tendency to try to control every little detail of what is going on around me. I did this to some extent before my fall -- I'm acutely intelligent and organized, have sharp visual and location skills, and am a good time manager -- so getting things done on the small, nearby level has never been a problem even with my rootless life. But since my fall, and in the wake of feeling my age and limitations more acutely, my tendency to scan the world for details and ways of smoothing my path (and avoiding risk) has increased. Once the initial shock receded and I became at least a little more mobile, I found that I was planning ahead, everything from the most efficient way to bring things upstairs, to how to do my errands in such a way that I carry an empty shopping bag uphill and a filled one downhill. I don't want to have to take extra trips. At times, I have been not just a little irritating, I am sure.
But I've been thinking about this as an energetic phenomenon, energy going into "x" when it could go into "y." Many of my female friends are superb managers (micro and otherwise!) And yet very few of my contemporaries made it into the higher echelons of management in any sphere, be it education, politics, finance, law, or medicine. We are women in our sixties, coming to terms with retirement from jobs or lower-level careers, our or our family's health issues, children's and grandchildren's lives, and how or when to continue with volunteer activities and earlier life goals. Are we so competent managing these facets of life because our real superpowers were not put to their best use?
I think of my grandmother Winnifred, the pioneering lawyer. She never really practiced law because in the early 1900's, once you married you were not allowed to work. She threw herself into her boys' educations, organizing her husband (probably unsuccessfully) and upper middle class household, teaching bridge and researching genealogy. But by all accounts, she became miserably unhappy, and died at about 61. Her extraordinary genius really had no outlet.
My own mom was extremely organized and competent in many spheres (from the Junior League to church), but she rarely had a job, much less a career. It was only several weeks before she died that she admitted to me that, based on the fabulous work of her hospice nurses, she finally believed that women should have careers! But the image that stays with me came from the previous summer, when she wanted to see and deal with all the boxes on the second floor of their garage. I brought a folding chair out onto the driveway in the shade under a tree, and one by one I brought down dozens of old boxes, many of which hadn't been opened in decades. Mom made decisions about all the contents, sorting things to keep, to give away, to give to the church yard sale, to sell in a family yard sale, to give to my brothers or myself, or for my dad to keep in the future. Exhausted from emphysema, she sat slumped over her knees, but she was "the decision-maker."
Even a few years ago when I lived in the YWCA in Montana, I was struck by how powerful the women were. Life had beaten them down, and their power was expressed in outrage about stolen food in the kitchen, or stolen boyfriends, or cattiness. But I just knew that if their lives had taken even one different turn, they might have been powerful members of society.
I can't speak for anyone else. I guess all I will say is that the more I micromanage, the more I wonder what my real form of management or leadership is. There is probably something bigger going on here, even now, if I let it.
