What’s It All About?

What’s It All About?

Nov 07

CRUMB CONTROL

What does it mean?

 

Well, since I’ve started a blog, I’ve got to get used to opening up a bit. For years I’ve been the type to rarely do this… To open up. That is, unless I’m in the midst of close friends. Because of this apprehension to be vulnerable around those who aren’t close to me, many of my posts will be difficult to write. I plan on sharing some of my personal experiences, among other things, in an attempt to create conversations and new ways of thinking.

I am hoping to maintain less an essay type style here and more of a conversational voice in the blogs which are to come. I hope to touch on my own issues while, at the same time, inviting you to use this platform as a mirror to face some of your own. Let’s not waste any time… I’ll go ahead and give you the details on what the peculiar phrase ‘Crumb Control’ means…

There were few constants in my childhood home. The only thing my siblings and I could truly count on was chaos. In the midst of this chaos was my mother and her extreme obsessive-compulsive-behaviors. Instead of focusing on the many incredibly chaotic things that existed around her, my mom was obsessed with cleanliness and organization. Every night before she got home from work, my dad would demand my siblings and I line up and report for crumb control. Even all these years later I can hear him clearly… “CRUMB CONTROL!”

We were ordered to our hands and knees, to closely inspect the floor. We would manually collect any and all crumbs with our fingers, carefully depositing them into our hands, and discarding them once control had been completed. When my mom came through the door, we would wait nervously and patiently as she sat on the couch and carefully scanned the kitchen floor. If she saw something, one of us would be called over to correct our error and collect the crumb. Usually though, we were well trained little soldiers, completing our duties with no crumbs left behind.

If it sounds crazy, I am explaining it accurately… It was. The overarching message of crumb control was to control chaos; albeit external and conducted in an effort to evade the responsibilities for taking care of the real chaos. We control what we can and often only control what is easy or that which helps us forget about what we should really be addressing. Instead of obsessing over crumbs, it would have been beneficial for my mom to submit to therapy and ultimately address the reasons behind her inability to break the cycles of addiction, abuse, and poverty that plagued her family. My parents, obsessed with the superficial crumbs, passed the torch from previous generations to our family.  Rather than deal with the emotional burdens given to them by their parents, they burdened my siblings and I with the duty of addressing the chaos contained within those generational torches. We had to figure out how to deal with our own crumbs… our internal crumbs, the ones that really matter, the ones that impact the outcome of our lives, the lives we share with others, and the lives we may bring into this world.

No more evading, no more worrying about the crumbs on the kitchen floor. It’s time to worry about what matters. I hope this blog will inspire you to care about what really matters. Let’s start some meaningful conversations and inspire meaningful change in our own lives and the lives of those around us. Let’s do work, even if it’s difficult and scary.