#TBT (#FBF) – The OCD Highway
I was too busy with sick people to get my #TBT post up yesterday. I thought about backdating it, but decided just to make this week #FBF instead.
anxiety
Into the scary woods
I’ve spent an enormous amount of mental energy forging routes around fear; taking the long way to avoid those scary woods. It’s an exhausting and isolated path, full of its own obstacles and lacking a GPS signal. My way was studded with compulsion and hidden distress, holding myself responsible for outcomes and creating imaginary control where I had none. I hid it well, which only served to make the road more desolate.
Hell’s Jenga
Kindergarten stresses me out. I don’t think it is supposed to do that. But as I pull paper after crumpled paper from Lorelei’s bookbag I can feel myself wanting to shove it all under the couch and run far, far away. 100 days projects. Boxtops. A million pieces of school work. Worksheets. Books for her to read. Newsletters. Fliers for programs and meetings and groups. Snack calendars. Fundraisers. -a-thons. Drives. As my brain is trying to prioritize this, it spirals into fear that I did not remember to do that thing. Some thing. I don’t know what thing. But there’s always a thing.
It’s Not All Hand Washing and Light Switches
The line between quirky and weird seemed to be stuck between my fingers. That feeling when you eat a donut or an ice cream cone and the residue makes your fingers so sticky that you desperately want to find a sink? That’s how they felt. Licking them would help – for a few minutes. Little kids are sticky, and I spent a lot of time licking between my fingers for momentary relief. It drove my parents crazy – we’d be in a public place, and there I was licking my hands like a compulsive cat. And if that wasn’t enough to embarrass every adult responsible for me, sometimes I would get a similar feeling in the back of my throat – this annoying build up of faux pressure that had to be released, and the only way was to make squeaky sounds. Sometimes on inhale, sometimes on exhale, always until a magic point when everything felt better – until the next time. Seams of socks and waistbands constricted, so I turned my socks inside out, and wore my pants around my hips to free myself from their ever-present annoyance. Things just felt wrong and it was a puzzle to make them right again.
#TBT – tornadoes
Saying I love weather is like saying I love breathing, it’s part of who I am, and has been for as long as I can remember. There is a home video from Christmas ’89 where I am playing in the snow, making snowballs, and generally being a kid – then I suddenly look up at the camera and with the authority of a meteorologist I state, “this is the first white Christmas in New Bern since 1898.” Then I go back to playing.
Solstice
The summer child is running, the summer child is running again.
The summer child is running, the summer child is running again
When you hear the feet and the sound of laughter,
Better step aside for the mayhem after
Here she comes, yeah the summer child is running again.
– Dar Williams
Participation points
Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in preschool anymore.
I’m not the mother I expected to be.