A Note from Ana on acts of balancing.
I've felt power early in my life. I am an older sibling, and often felt smarter, wittier, and better at everything than my little sister—when one is 9 and the other is 4, it’s an easy game. The first time I consciously remember the feeling of control was when I lied to her about something absurd. She believed me, and I felt fully, potently superhuman. I tried to convince her that the empty bathtub she was in was full of water, which she simply couldn't see or feel. She firmly rejected this until eventually she said, “Oh, I think I feel it now!” I remember the conflicting feelings running through me—an intoxicating sensation of building a world for someone and controlling it, and a terrible responsibility I suddenly recognized as mine. This person could believe anything I say. Finally, I told her there was no water, with a mix of fascination and guilt, and tried to laugh it off. She did not find it funny.
Over time, I found myself drawn to carrying responsibility in different forms—at school, in relationships, and later at work. It became a pattern: stepping into spaces where others entrusted me with something and learning how to bear the weight of that trust. Every choice in these roles carried consequences; people’s lives and often private experiences could be directly shaped by the work I did. I never wanted to control the people in my life. What became increasingly more acute and real was the control over—and responsibility for—my choices. If I stepped away—if I stopped caring—the cost of that surrender would fall to others.
There is no doubt about the honor and privilege of that responsibility; but the knowledge of its magnitude transformed it into something heavier. I built structures for myself—a mechanism to not lose balance, to never veer off, to hold myself accountable. I kept myself in check, because I knew I couldn’t risk recklessness when so much was at stake.
Over time, my body started to succumb to the pressure. I fell off my bike. I tripped on stairs. Every Friday, I felt the urge to go out and dance until morning. I wanted to find places where I was anonymous. I couldn’t understand these pulls. They were messages from my system that I simply couldn’t read.
In carrying responsibility, I had forgotten something—the need to feel small, safe, held. What would it look like if I didn’t decide anything? I began to notice how often I tried to influence decisions, how much I had internalized a controlling pattern. Slowly, I welcomed another way—allowing moments of release, stepping into spaces where others carried the responsibility of and for themselves. The feeling of someone being suddenly responsible for you—because they’ve earned it and because you’ve allowed them—was terrifying at first. But it dissolved the sense of loneliness and self-importance that had been building. In experiencing this other side of care, I found a unity within myself.
Our culture balances power as something taken or given. But the two instincts, to carry and to relinquish, are always connected. The more I needed to let go, the more precious it felt to be held. It’s a loop: when someone carries responsibility for me, I am more emboldened to carry responsibility for others, with grace, focus, and energy.
Power is not just work and play. It is more expansive, more fluid. What I do know is that we are capable of playing games and building worlds together that we could never construct alone. The very possibility of a ritual of giving control to someone else is magical. It’s proof that we can lean on each other in ways that enable us and help us to grow. Where and how you give that power is for you to explore. It exists. It’s yours.
