their home was to be placed squarely on the coffee table with the remote placed vertically straight on top – centered.  If I noticed anything eschew, I would lean over and straighten them so they were perfect.  Back in the day when Jenny was a toddler, before I would go to bed at night, I would count every one of her colored plastic blocks as I put them back in the container and if one was missing – I enlisted him to help me find it…THEN we would go to bed.  There was a time when I cleaned my bathroom – at least once a day…cleaned – not cleaned up.  For most of my younger years, I did not leave the house without my hair being perfect, my makeup on and agonized over what clothes I would wear – changing my outfits several times before I left the house.  Yet, my closets and kitchen cupboards were a mess.  I jammed things into them anyway they would fit and then I would close the door.

I have a tendency to revisit similar habits now…when I’m feeling insecure.  Perhaps I should turn that around to this:  I realize I am feeling insecure when I have the need to obsessively organize things on the outside…the things that others might see as a failing on my part.  Just a few minutes ago I was in the laundry room and thinking about the multi-colored hangers I own.  The thought crossed my mind that maybe what I should do is have different colored hangers for him and different colored hangers for me.  The theory that when I pull things out of the dryer, they could be hung on the appropriate colored hanger so when I put them away, I would know which go on his side of the closet and which go on my side of the closet.  Then I thought – sounds great but what if I have a momentary lapse and hang clothes on the wrong hanger and they are put in the closet wrong, you know 180 degrees off from where they should be…and then patted myself on the back because I realized how much more anxiety this could create….what’s going on in my life right now that I can’t control!

I tightly hold on to the things I can control because there are other things I can’t control and anxiety and cold sores are the symptoms!

Until next time….