I'm going to fail my degree

It's true
I'm Shit!

"My Mum's not a lesbian..."

...that was one of the first things I said to my old housemates, as I moved into their house, in my last year at Kingston. My mother and her friend, Barbara, had helped me move my stuff into Smith Street. As we took in the last few bits of recording gear and assorted paraphernalia into my new residence, I considered that it might look a little odd to my new housemates that two middle-aged women were helping me with my stuff, rather than the more socially recognised 'Mum and Dad'. "I hope they don't think Mum and Barbara are partners!", I thought. To make clear the situation, I exclaimed to them all, with astonishing concision, that this was most certainly was not the case. The response, as far as I can recall, was a unified perplexity.
I expect you're wondering why you needed to know of that story, other than to embarrass my mother (she will be most pleased ;)). The reason is that it represents fairly well my desire to be understood, or to be more precise, my fear of being misunderstood. This desire (or fear, if you look at it from the other angle) is most tiring and I have in the past, reacted against it. I don't know if you'll remember a much earlier post, when I was banging on about a time at Kingston when I wanted to be someone I wasn't. "Enigmatic" was the word I used to describe how I wanted to be. I guess I figured that to be somewhat of an enigma must be quite cool, or something. It fitted, anyway, with the kind of people I admired - Richey Edwards, Elliott Smith, Nick Drake, etc. and was a million miles away from my over-explanatory, paranoid, awkward and bumbling persona. But the fact is I'm not an enigma. Indeed, I think if you try to work me out, it probably wouldn't be that difficult (although it may be a task to drag some things from me). Mainly because I'd explain things over and over again.

There are two main things I am afraid of in being misunderstood..
1. Causing an response of derision or disrespect arising from the lack of understanding, and targeted at me. But most importantly...
2. Causing the misunderstanding person to themselves feel upset or hurt as a result of the lack of understanding.

I think this fear comes from a lack of trust. I know myself what I mean when I say or do something, but I cannot seem to trust that the message has got through correctly or not, so I'll expand again and again, until I'm not too far from being quite patronising. Why do I do this? Most people are more than capable, I'm sure, of understanding what I say without needing to spell it out for them. To me, it seems like I need complete control, even of what someone understands, not because the situation calls for it, but because if I don't control the situation, I will stress over the possibility of miscomprehension, with the possible results being the fear of the two things listed above. Ever noticed how I say "D'you know what I mean?" quite a lot?...
So I'm a control freak, which only causes stress, when in control and out. And that's kind of how I've felt for quite a while now - Stressed.
I expect after all that, you're waiting for the "but now I figured it all out...", but I'm afraid I have none. I haven't quite worked out how I can be more at ease with less control, but I have confidence God will help me. I have asked Him.
I do know from experience that when not in control, things do not necessarily fall apart, and when in control, I don't always make a good job of things. I took control of what I considered to be a question hanging in the air, on that moving-in date in Kingston, nearly three years ago. I acted on it and my housemates understood as a result, but they sure as hell thought I was a bit odd to go with it!!