DAY 43: OCD?

I have known for some time that I may have OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) tendencies, but it seems like it is really coming to a head while here in the hospital. I'm not sure if it is actually OCD though. Some might say, I am just "particular", some might say, "I am anal", and then some might whole heartedly agree that it is in fact "OCD".

I am very in tune to my immediate surroundings and the environment in general. I am the girl that will walk into a room and immediately notice a picture that is askew. I am the girl who will notice if a pile of mail has been shifted from one end of the table to the other, and I am the girl who drives down the road and notices an new bill board before we are even upon it. I love to organize. My CDs, DVDs, and spices are alphabetized. I have all the extraneous contents of my hall closet and bedroom closet on shelves in matching baskets. I love drawer dividers. My towels are all folded and faced the same way. The books on my shelf have to be lined up according to their height. My clothes hang in my closet by color and we have all wooden hangers.

It's all about symmetry. Visual aesthetics. Straight lines. Balance. Systems.

You get the idea. As I look around my hospital room each day, I cringe. It is impossible to uphold my standards in this environment. I think it is probably good for me to have no choice but to relinquish these control issues or whatever kind of issues they are, but I must admit it is painful. And I haven't gone without trying. I have asked Jonathan to do some pretty wacky things all in an attempt to gain some of the symmetry, visual aesthetics, and balance that I long for.

I thought you might get a kick out of some of the things I have requested of him, and of course, he hasn't ever questioned any of them! He just goes along with it. I wonder if he has known all along I am a freak or if he is discovering just how much of a freak I am! Well, nonetheless I'm gonna take this blog post one step further and put myself even further out there than I already have! Here goes:

1. There was an orange sitting on the counter with a little dark scratch mark on it, and I asked him to turn it around so I wouldn't have to look at the dark mark.
2. The phone book was up on a high shelf and it was turned towards me with all of the pages ruffling up so I asked him to turn it around so I could see the binding instead.
3. I have cards hanging on the wall and there were a few that were asymmetrical so I asked him to straighten them up so that they would be more visually appealing.
4. The books were on the shelf in a disarray so I needed him to organize them and straighten them by their height and then categorize by children's or adult's books.
5. The pop tart box wasn't closed and I couldn't stand looking at the messy tabs sticking out of the top of the box. I wanted it closed nice and neatly!
6. I had him help me categorize my drawers. One drawer for personal grooming items, one drawer for electronic gadgets, one drawer for magazines/catalogs, and one drawer for scrapbooking paper. And then there's the whole scrapbooking rolling cart with five of it's own drawers!

Well, I think I'm gonna stop with those. Enough revealed!

So what is your assessment? Am I particular? Do I have OCD? Is it a bad case of Anal Retentiveness? Or am I just a girl who has been uprooted from her cozy home and trying to make sense of her new surroundings putting her systems into play?

A little balance, a little symmetry, a little visual continuity.

Those aren't all bad are they?