Notes on a madwoman

I bought new sheets today - but not just regular old sheets. Fleece sheets. Fleeeeeeeece. I saw them somewhere last week and have been dreaming about them ever since. When I spotted a gorgeous set at Costco today for just $31, I grabbed them.

They're going to take up a stupid amount of room in the linen closet when we're not using them, but it'll be worth the annoyance during the warm months to be cuddled by a queen size mattress-shaped teddy bear all winter long.

I took my dad to dialysis today. We needed someone to be there to make sure the shot he was getting wasn't a duplicate flu shot. He has a lot of trouble hearing and even more trouble remembering, so he came home on Monday afternoon with sketchy information about the nature of the shot.

Always one to escalate the seriousness of a situation beyond reasonable levels (particularly if I have an entire night to think about it), I decided I needed to make sure he was okay myself.

And the sheets, they came later. A carefully planned reward.

I can't figure out if this is a healthy coping mechanism or just a crutch. But whatever. I have new sheets!!!

Fleeeeeeece.
___________________________________________________

I've been clenching my jaw like a madwoman on crack lately. Not that I know what a madwoman on crack would actually do with her jaw, but I suspect at least some of the time there'd be some vice grip action going on.

The last time I was at the dentist I was soundly chastized for my grinding activities. So much so that she actually took a picture of one of my more seriously worn teeth and blew it up on screen so I could get a really good look at it.

It was bigger than my head. Alarming for that reason alone, frankly.

She then proceeded to show me one of her own perfectly formed, pristine teeth - the same one as the mangled, head-size one still leering at me from the computer monitor.

It was horrifying and humiliating all at once.

God, I love doctors.

I'm kind of hoping I get a lecture on grinding at my next appointment (which I need to make soon so they'll stop leaving messages for me in that cheery, "it'll-be-quick-and-painless-and-really-fun-and-happy" dentist tone they use when they're trying to lure you in for a cleaning). I might need to explain to her - at length and in great detail - exactly why I'm a helpless slave to the grinding, especially now.

I bet that would be even more fun than taunting someone who grinds with your magical, perfect tooth.
__________________________

I neeeeeeeed to start getting some exercise. I need exercise way more than I needed those sheets. And probably more than I need to go to the dentist, truth be told.

The stress is killing me softly. And fattening me up nicely.

I reward myself a lot - with fleece sheets sometimes, but more often it's with chocolate. And I really must find a better way to cope with the stress of worrying about and caring for my parents - and then worrying about what bits of my own life are sliding while I'm preoccupied with them.

I worry all the time. Then when I do something hard, I reward myself with crap I shouldn't eat or stuff I don't need to buy. Then I feel guilty. Then I worry about that for a bit, then I go back to worrying about whatever it was that I was worried about before I decided I had to reward myself.

And so on, and so on.

I'm clearly in a downward spiral of chocolate eating and sheet buying and endless worrying.

Maybe I'll go for a walk tomorrow morning after a good night's sleep on my new fleece-y sheets. Which are, of course, chocolate-coloured. I'm nothing if not consistent.

It would be funny it was a character in a movie

I'm not going to lie. I've always had a touch of OCD; a special penchant for re-checking the previously checked, worrying about catastrophes that never come, and just generally fretting needlessly.

Virtually no amount of calm reassurance from cooler minds is able to convince me that someone besides myself can check things properly - or, more importantly, will remember to check everything.

During stressful times it's worse. On Christmas Eve, for some odd reason, it's next to impossible to control. Leaving the house to go to my in-laws for dinner involves frantic racing in and out of rooms to ensure that everything is locked, turned off, unplugged, stored properly, sealed, closed, put away - that the whole house is thoroughly, unequivocally safe and sound.

Why I think some catastrophic event is going to happen on Christmas Eve is beyond me. But it sits in my brain and taunts me with its fiery, very un-Christmas like possibility.

In the years since Thomas died, I've noticed that while the OCD (which is self-diagnosed, thanks to my Internet degree in psychology - I also have one in reproductive endocrinology, by the way) isn't necessarily any worse, it has expanded in scope. Morphed into something new.

Now, it seems, I can turn even the most benign non-event into a catastrophe-in-the-making. If there's a way for someone to die because I dropped a stray elastic band in the living room and forgot to pick it up, I'll imagine it. And it will haunt me until I retrieve the elastic band and dispose of it properly.

Only then is peace restored. Only then are those around me safe. Until, of course, I misplace a paper clip.

Do you know the myriad ways you can be injured by a paper clip? Sweet Jesus, do you?

I know where this comes from. Of course I do. Five people died on my watch. I absolutely do not want to be responsible for any more deaths - I can't be. I just can't. So my spastic little brain spends its time calculating the probability of mortality of all those around me at any given moment as I wander through the day living, and checking. And re-checking. And pointing out dangers to others because it's my new responsibility to keep everyone safe - like I'm some middle-aged, chubby, neurotic little suburban superhero.

I've been quiet about this. I fully recognize the batshit craziness of it all, so it has always seemed best just to continue picking up elastics and keeping it all to myself.

But then, as is so often the case in this wonderful virtual world of gut-spilling, I found a blogger who does it too. A blogger who totally gets it.

She wisely pointed out that once you've seen death - once it has crashed in unannounced and violated you in the most horrific way imaginable - you know it's out there. You know the unthinkable is actually possible and that it can come when it is least expected. Like when a baby dies the day after it's just been born.

And you can't un-know it. You can never un-know it. And it taunts you, that knowledge. And it makes you think elastics can kill.

Long slow sigh. There is so much mind-fuckery in grief. So much endless work to soothe a mind so thoroughly and meticulously shattered.

Sigh

Ugh, forget yesterday's post. My victory. My pride. All of it.

Today I remembered one last article of maternity wear hanging in another closet. I retrieved it...noticed it really doesn't look like a maternity sweater, tried it on, felt how soft it was, remembered that my Mom bought it for me.

And totally couldn't part with it.

It's so cozy! And it really only seems big around the hips, for the most part. It must not have fit me very well when I was pregnant. It can't have. Either that or I was really stretching it out. I mean yeah, it's too big - it's not the size I'd buy if I was buying a sweater NOW - but it's fuzzy, red, soft, and it'll be nice to cozy up in by the fire.

On days when I'm feeling particularly crazy, apparently.

Oy.

Is this weird? Is it?

Why do I need constant reassurance? Why?

Yeah, answer that question too, please.

The end.