Lights OFF!

My life is a folder. A file that you keep your paper and documents in, each subject named and stored where it should be. Our living room is chapter one, with sub-chapters continued by the kitchen and its sub-chapters and then the bedrooms, breakfast, bathrooms, cupboards, fridges, couches, computers, mobiles, paper, printers, spoons, forks, knives, vitamins, fruits, vegetables, health, dog. It’s all listed, right down to our toenails! Everything goes where it should go.
I think it started when my mother realized that her world would turn upside down once my brother and I came along, and decided we were sponges and would absorb the organized gene so that when we were older she wouldn’t have to worry about a messy house I guess. It’s hard to really say how her clock ticks. It’s a relief we no longer need her help to shower. It was always first shampoo and using it to make my hair stick upwards like a stick with the soap, then conditioner which you leave in hair while you soap yourself and then you wash off the whole lot. No relaxing under the hot water for a few minutes. Straight out to be toweled dry, straight to the bedroom where a towel is placed on the bed where I sit to wait for my mother who comes in with a basket containing the lotions and ear buds. She started with the legs, then the arms and then the face, then cleaning my ears to make sure none of the golden wax was left lying in my ear. Socks on, pajama bottoms on, vest on, pajama top on, eat dinner, bed.
Like the military.
You’d expect it to be different now… but it’s not. She doesn’t assist me in the shower nor help me put lotion on but instead she controls me verbally, doing her evil work and deeds. Following her footsteps, so that I don’t trip over her organized surroundings.
I feel like a dog on a short lead.