OCD

I'm an organizing fanatic and I should have the letters OCD tattooed to my forehead. Everything has its place in my home- whether it's in a box, a drawer, or on a shelf. Order, and maintaining order daily is how I spare myself the stress of accumulated disaster. Presentation is also crucial. If something looks messy, I find a different way to organize it. Symmetry, cleanliness, style, uniformity are all factors. I will choose them over convenience. Therefore, all like items must be placed in the same container. If all like items cannot fit in the same container, and the specified container is the only one I will allow, then a few of the like items will be disposed of in order for all to fit in said container. Problem solved.

I become flustered if things are a mess or out of place to the point where I will spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to "fix it." A simple vase on the table will be moved to the right, now to the left, now a smidgen to the right, now a smidgen forward, no, backward, now back to where it began, now in a completely different location- before I am satisfied with how it looks against the wall, in reference to how others will see it when they enter to door, in relationship with the corner, synchronous to the colors around it, angled with the picture frames, in proportion to the lamp, congruent to the little dent, friendly to the neighborly bug, and approved by the imaginary canary.

Chirp, chirp. I approve

Sometimes I will glare at the offensive mess with murderous intent, leave, scheme, return, then fix it. This usually occurs when rearranging furniture. My compulsion is such that I will use all the strength in my 5'2" body to lug furniture across the room, even if it means a millimeter at a time. It cannot wait for hubby's assistance. It MUST be done. NOW! 

I prance around the corner with a huge grin on my face as hubby steps through the door. He stares at me in bewilderment, noting the crazy hair sticking out in all directions, and the battle wounds on my arms and legs. 


"Hubby!" I yell in his face. I think I must look high on illegal substances but really I'm delirious from having had nothing to eat or drink all day. "How do you like what I've done with the place?" Hubby looks over my head at the apartment that no longer, in any way, resembles the apartment he left that morning. 


In the middle of the night, while we're both lying in bed and hubby is trying to fall asleep, I turn towards him and say, "I don't think I like it."

I have limitations when it comes to color. I don't do well with too much colorfulness decorating one room because it doesn't appear orderly to me. It clashes catastrophically in my brain. I must begin with a neutral color like white, black, beige, or grey, and add only a few splashes of color therewith- currently light blue against white or a dark brown. If something doesn't match my decor, I will find a replacement, or a drawer to put it in so it doesn't offend my eyes.

All my clothes hangers are of one color- white. I spent hours hanging and rehanging clothes to unify them after my hubby and I moved in together when we got married. When I thought black hangers would somehow make our clothes look cooler, I made the mistake of not buying enough of them. So upon discovering that I didn't have enough black hangers more than halfway through the pile, I had to rehang our clothes back on white hangers to satisfy my inner OCD. If you open the guest room closet, you will see what I've done with all the black hangers.

Hakuna Matata

Bane of my existence

Furthermore, if things are a mess and forces of nature are such that I am unable to clean it at that exact moment, I will flutter about in a state of mildly induced panic until something can be done about it, or until hubby escorts me out the door before we are too much later for our appointment.

I recall an incident where my mother-in-law was teaching me how to cook a korean dish. Normally, one focuses on the act of cooking before the act of cleaning, but due to my mental state, I am unable to do so. My work environment must be clean and orderly at all times. I wash dishes in the midst of cooking, I rearrange bowls of chopped vegetables so they look cute sitting there on the counter all in a row. If I drop a crumb on the counter, i will clean it up even though I know I'm going to drop more crumbs and will subsequently have to clean the counter again multiple times.

But any way, here I am frantically trying to do both- cook and clean until my mother-in-law tells me to just "clean later." Of course I obey, like a good daughter-in-law. But little did I know that the OCD monster would rear its ugly head.

The panic creeps in with every spoon, bowl, vegetable peel that is not placed either in the sink or the garbage can. Soon the kitchen looks like- to me, a complete and utter mess, beyond the point of no return, and my mother-in-law is calmly adding more to the chaos. The whole time I'm thinking:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.


And then, she asks me to grate the onion in the food processor. I look around at the chaos, and I think- she wants me to add a food processor to all this? My brain cannot possibly handle it. I put my foot down. "No. I will use this!" And I pulled out a chopper you mash manually by pushing down on the top of it in order to bring the blades down on the vegetable. Somehow I think this contraption is more manageable.


Food Chopper

She comments by saying, "I don't think that will be good enough. It needs to be very finely chopped."(At the time I didn't realize she meant "into mush"). I stubbornly insist. "I'm going to use this! It's going to work!" I proceed to mash up the onion, one little chunk at a time- since the area the blades can reach is small. With each chop, it slowly dawns on me. This was not working. She nicely comments again. "I think we should use the food processor." But I must save face. "No, this is working just fine! We don't need the food processor!"


10 minutes later, sweating profusely beneath mother-in-law's gaze, I'm still working on the small piece of onion, slamming down on the chopper with a vengeance. Eventually, I pull the demolished pieces of onion out for her to see. "See? It works!" I smile gleefully. She looks at me in confused pity. Shakes her head. "Food processor?"

My stubbornness having reached no victory, no satisfaction, I relent. My OCD monster has been shot down, embarrassed and stupefied. All I am left with is a dirty kitchen, an extra food chopper on the counter I shouldn't have used, and my mother-in-law who thinks I'm a total nut for refusing to use the food processor.

It used to be that maintenance of my OCD world was easy. The way I left something was the way it was when I got back home. Until now- and all because hubby refuses to participate in my insanity. Now I step foot through my front door and... trip over a sandal that wasn't put away. I kick it into the corner. A few dishes in the sink I'll ignore. At least it's contained. But still, I'm irked. Entering the walk-in closet, there are clothes thrown haphazardly into the corner.

I storm out with my hands on my hips. "Hubby!"
"What?!" he says. He knows he has done something to displease me.
"Follow me." Grudgingly he gets off the couch, follows me back into the closet.
"Look!" I point to the clothes hiding in the shelf corner. I grab a handful and throw them on the ground in front of me. "How many times do I have to tell you to put these away!" I step on his shorts, grinding it as best I can into the carpet. I kick it away, back into the corner. Take that. Ha. I stare up at him with my scrunched-up angry face. He looks back at me, doesn't say a word. I get to work on his t-shirt next. 
"Hah!" I yell with glee, stomping on it, jumping on it, and finally kicking it up so high it lands on the dresser. But hubby grabs at the sock on my foot and I almost fall while hopping on one leg. "Hey!"
"Hieeyah!" he yells, a sort of kung fu master cry, and flings it to the ground as I did. He pounds at it with his foot.
"Gahh!" I yell as I take his khaki pants, ball it up in my hands, and chuck it as hard as I can in the opposite direction. He follows suit with a shirt of mine he had to tug off the hanger to get.
"Hey! Put that back!" I exclaim while reaching for another one of his rumpled shorts. This one I fling at him, and it hits his back. He slowly turns around with his eyes wide. I hold on for dear life as he grabs at the jacket I'm still wearing. 
"Yahhhh! No fair!" Kicking his shin, I run away.

Goodbye to the organized, the cleanliness, the stress-free home life. Now I leave the shoes at the entrance, wash the dishes a day or two late, and leave the shorts by the bed where they always- without fail- end up. Woe to my attempts at training hubby in the ways of keeping things in their proper place. I think I shall count my blessings.

"Organized people are just too lazy to look for things." -Bertrand Russell