Battle

Intense post alert...

I am currently sitting on my couch in the wee hours of the night, on the eve of my very big first day of work, because of stress induced insomnia. I have battled with insomnia for as long as I can remember and it can be brought on by different things, including my obsessive thoughts.

Earlier in the day, my sister and I decided that we were going to go on a sister date to Starbucks as we both had a lot of homework to catch up on. Because I also had a lot of laundry to do, I left two loads running and asked my mom if she could hang one load up to dry, and place the other in the dryer which I had preset. Off we went, and lots of coffee, studying, and To Do lists later, we made our way back home. When I asked my mother if she'd brought the clothes in from the line or if I needed to grab them, she looked at me with that look of complete shock and regret that told me she had forgotten to take the clothes out of the washing machines.

This is the point in the blog when you think #firstworldproblems. Let me begin by saying, a) I am completely aware that this was not my mother's fault, nor b) is it logically the end of the world.

Now let me explain to you what actually happened and is still playing out. When I found out that the clothes were not dry, I completely flipped my lid. I threw a tantrum that would impress any two year old, including the slamming of many doors as I made my way to the basement to get the clothes that were now not only still wet, but terribly wrinkled. As I do this, I begin going through all of the things that this mistake has now caused to go wrong.

1. The outfit that I painstakingly picked out for my first day of work is not dry and ready to be ironed as my To Do list said it would be.

2. Although I have planned out every outfit I will wear for my first week of work, I cannot possibly borrow from another day because that's not how I planned for things to go.

3. I will now have to figure out another outfit to wear for my first day.

4. I will now have to be forced to wash my other clothes that are machine dryable in order to find a comfortable, yet trendy "First Day of Work" outfit.

5. I will not be able to give myself a manicure because I will not have time to dry my nails between loads of laundry.

And the list goes on and on and on. What makes the psychotic ticking off of all of the items on my To Do list even worse, my anxiety causes me to go into an obsessive whirlwind of cleaning and organizing which makes getting my list completed even more impossible. Also there is the fact that as I'm washing and putting away the dishes, making sure everything is put away and in its place, and unpacking and repacking my purse to make sure I don't forget anything, I am completely aware of how irrational and destructive the behavior I am participating in is.

After all is said and done, I finished and put away the loads of laundry, got through most of my list, planned an alternate outfit, and hung the pre-selected outfit on a drying rack in front of a fan in the hopes that it will dry in time for the morning. But even though I was able to complete 98% of everything on the list and more, my brain still won't turn off because things didn't go exactly as planned and no amount of logic will allow me to escape the trap it has set for me.