Judith Viorst - Imperfect Control: Our Life-long Struggles with Power and Surrender

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Also by Judith Viorst

Poems

The Village Square

Its Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty and Other Tragedies of Married Life

People and Other Aggravations

How Did I Get to Be Forty and Other Atrocities

If I Were in Charge of the World and Other Worries

When Did I Stop Being Twenty and Other Injustices

Forever Fifty and Other Negotiations

Sad Underwear and Other Complications

Suddenly Sixty and Other Shocks of Later Life

Im Too Young to Be Seventy and Other Delusions

Unexpectedly Eighty and Other Adaptations

Wait for Me and Other Poems About the Irritations and Consolations of a Long Marriage

What Are You Glad About? What Are You Mad About?

Childrens Books

Sunday Morning

Ill Fix Anthony

Try It Again, Sam

The Tenth Good Thing About Barney

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

My Mama Says There Arent Any Zombies, Ghosts, Vampires, Creatures, Demons, Monsters, Fiends, Goblins, or Things

Rosie and Michael

Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday

The Good-bye Book

Earrings!

The Alphabet From Z to A (With Much Confusion on the Way)

Alexander, Whos Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move

Absolutely Positively Alexander

Super-Completely and Totally the Messiest

Just in Case

Nobody Here but Me

Lulu and the Brontosaurus

Lulu Walks the Dogs

Lulus Mysterious Mission

Alexander, Whos Trying His Best to Be the Best Boy Ever

And Two Boys Booed

Lulu Is Getting a Sister (Who Wants Her? Who Needs Her?)

Other

Yes, Married

A Visit from St. Nicholas (To a Liberated Household)

Love & Guilt & the Meaning of Life, Etc.

Necessary Losses

Murdering Mr. Monti

Youre Officially a Grown-Up

Grown-Up Marriage

Alexander and the Wonderful, Marvelous, Excellent, Terrific Ninety Days

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Copyright 1998 by Judith Viorst

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition March 2002

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Interior design by Bonni Leon-Berman

The Library of Congress has catalogued the Simon & Schuster edition as follows:

Viorst, Judith.

Imperfect control : our lifelong struggle with power and surrender / Judith Viorst.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Control (Psychology) I. Title.

BF611.V56 1998

158.1dc21 9737302

CIP

ISBN 978-0-684-84814-3

ISBN 978-1-5011-0589-0 (ebook)

The author acknowledges with thanks permission to reprint extended quotations from the following:

Margaret Wise Brown, Goodnight Moon. Copyright 1947 by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Text copyright renewed 1975 by Roberta Brown Rauch. Louise Glck, The Gift, from The First Four Books of Poems. Copyright 1968, 197180, 1985, 1995 by Louise Glck. Reprinted by permission of The Ecco Press. Amy Schwartz, A Teeny Tiny Baby. Copyright 1994 by Amy Schwartz. Used by permission of Orchard Books, New York. Martin Seligman, Helplessness. Copyright 1992 by Martin E. P. Seligman. Used by permission of W. H. Freeman and Company. Amy Clampitt, Gooseberry Fool, from What the Light Was Like. Copyright 1985 by Amy Clampitt. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Robert Lowell, During Fever, from Life Studies. Copyright 1956, 1959 by Robert Lowell. Copyright renewed 1987 by Harriet Lowell, Sheridan Lowell, and Caroline Lowell. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. C. K. Williams, My Mothers Lips, from Poems 19631983. Copyright 1988 by C. K. Williams. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places Youll Go, from Oh, The Places Youll Go by Dr. Seuss. and copyright 1990 by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L. P. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc. Joseph Noshpitz, Disturbances in Early Adolescent Development, from The Course of Life, Vol. 2, edited by Greenspan and Pollock. Copyright 1980 by Joseph D. Noshpitz. Reprinted by permission. John Weisz, Understanding the Developing Understanding of Control, from The Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology, Vol. 18, edited by Marion Perlmutter. Copyright 1986 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Reprinted by permission. Shelley E. Taylor, excerpts from Positive Illusions: Creative Self-Deception and the Healthy Mind. Copyright 1989 by BasicBooks, Inc. Reprinted by permission of BasicBooks, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. D. H. Lawrence, I Wish I Knew a Woman, from The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence, edited by V. de Sola Pinto and F. W. Roberts. Copyright 1964, 1971 by Angelo Ravagli and C. M. Weekley, Executors of the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA, Inc. Ann Landers, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee. Copyright 1996 by The Eppie Company, Ltd. Permission granted by Ann Landers and Creators Syndicate. Philip Blumstein and Pepper Schwartz, American Couples. Copyright 1983 by Philip Blumstein and Pepper Schwartz. Reprinted by permission. Reynolds Price, The Dream of Refusal. Copyright 1994 by Reynolds Price. Reprinted by permission. Shelley E. Taylor, Joanne V. Wood, Rosemary R. Lichtman, It Could Be Worse: Selective Evaluation as a Response to Victimization, from Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 39, No. 2. Copyright 1983 by Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. Jack Schwartz, Hurt but Unbroken, The Washington Post. Copyright 1996 by The Washington Post , April 16, 1996. Reprinted by permission. Peter Maas, From His Bed, CIAs Best Makes His Breakthroughs, The Washington Post. Copyright 1996 by The Washington Post, April 21, 1996. Reprinted by permission. W. H. Auden, Miss Gee, from W. H. Auden: Collected Poems by W. H. Auden, edited by Edward Mendelson. Copyright 1940 and renewed 1968 by W. H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc. Edna St. Vincent Millay, Those hours when happy hours were my estate, from Collected Poems , HarperCollins. Copyright 1954, 1982 by Norma Millay Ellis. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Elizabeth Barnett, literary executor. Jane Kenyon, Otherwise, from Othenvise: New & Selected Poems. Copyright 1996 by Jane Kenyon. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota. Dorothy Parker, Rsum, from The Portable Dorothy Parker. Introduction by Brendan Gill. Copyright 1926, 1928, renewed 1954, copyright 1956 by Dorothy Parker. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA, Inc. Theodore Roethke, The Far Field, from The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke. Copyright 1962 by Beatrice Roethke, Administratrix of the Estate of Theodore Roethke. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. David Morowitz, Bagels on Sunday, from American Scholar, Winter 1996, Vol. 65, No. 1. Copyright 1995 by David A. Morowitz. Reprinted by permission. Timothy E. Quill, M.D., Death and Dignity: Making Choices and Taking Charge. Copyright 1993 by Timothy E. Quill. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.