Having Visitors

Usually when someone calls me and says they're stopping by, I'm thrown into something of a panic. Just a generic, something bad seems likely to happen sort of thing. So I was thrilled when my sister stopping by with her kids didn't throw me. EXCEPT, that I became worried about my bathroom making them sick. I don't really know why that would be, but when does that ever stop me from worrying.

I did my standard "once a month" clean of the bathroom, and up they came. And of course they didn't use my bathroom. They did use the bathroom at the city park. hahaha, I'm pretty sure my bathroom was less creepy than that one.

Gum

Today at work I dropped a piece of gum on my chair (unchewed). I picked it up and put it in my mouth. I thought it was going to fall on the floor. I would have picked it up and chewed it from there, too. Now sure, this may just reflect how much I wanted that gum, but I still choose to view it as progress.

Sometimes We All Have OCD

(Count me among those who hates throwing around the idea of being "a little OCD." Given that, my title makes no sense. But oh well, run with it.)

Today at the farmer's market, a man walked by and sneezed three wet disgusting sneezes right into his hand. Everyone in the stand I was in sort of froze and turned in his direction. No one said anything, but you could sense a collective, "EWW. Now he's going to go touch some produce." Human hygiene is pretty grim sometimes. Oh, well.

In other news, I didn't end up playing in the kickball tournament, but I did attend some of it, and I offered to play if they needed me. A few people had gotten injured, but no one irreparably so, and I'm pretty sure I had nothing to do with it. :)

Another Sign of Progress

I'm a mediocre but enthusiastic gardener. I am, however, extremely good at growing dahlias. My avatar is one of my dahlias. I have a bed of about 30 of them right up next to my sidewalk in the front yard. They draw a lot of attention. People just can't resist touching them; passersby regularly "pet" the flowers, really they do. Last year this drove me nuts, purely because I thought when I picked them, I would have germs to contend with. I would never pick a flower I'd seen someone touch that day. This year, my first instinct is still "eww," but it doesn't bother me nearly as much. Yesterday I went out and specifically brought a flower into the house that I thought someone had touched just a few minutes before.

Good News Bad News

Well, the receptionist had a migraine. But another potluck attendee has some kind of skin infection. Hmm. I ate her dessert anyway. It was good. I still feel a little anxious about it, but I'm doing okay.

My next exposure was going to be to go to a grimy movie theater tomorrow. But the reviews online were SOOO bad: uncomfortable seats, rude staff, hard to find the unlocked doors (!), that I decide to go to the average old theater right across the street. Maybe I'll use the restroom while I'm there, though.

I Can Do It

I had a long talk with a friend yesterday about the state of my OCD, and I was reminded (yet again) that you can never let up, because it's just too easy to backslide. So I'm (yet again) focusing on ramping up exposures. Today has an especially scary one. Yesterday our receptionist at work was out sick. She's back today, and I don't know what was wrong with her, but it sounds like she's still not feeling well. Of course my brain always goes straight to "stomach virus!" Today we have a potluck. I had planned not to attend, based on her illness. But I love potlucks! And I'm supposed to be making social decisions based on what I love, not what my OCD tells me. So I'll be there today. Worst thing that happens, I get sick. Well, getting sick is actually on my OCD To Do List. Here I go.

Feeling Frustrated

Earlier this week, I decided that OCD fears aside, I just plain didn't want to give up 10 hours of my precious free time to play kickball. So despite that I hate flaking on people (and really, I should have thought of that BEFORE signing up, right? But I got so caught up in the opportunity for some great exposures I didn't think it through), I withdrew from the tournament. I'm mostly happy with the decision, but of course OCD is kicking in in the opposite direction now. As in, will my team hate me? Will someone get injured because they have to play more time because I'm not there? Etc., etc.

It's yet another great opportunity to sit with the anxiety, to accept that I might ruin something, and if I do, I'll cope with it when it happens. That's so much easier said than done.

And of course lurking in the back of my mind is the fact that if I didn't have OCD, I probably would have sucked it up and honored my commitment once I'd signed up. I don't know, just having a hard week.

Best Vacation Ever?

I took this whole week off. I am painting the outside of my house! Awesome. Actually, the very small portion that's totally done looks great! So that's good. It has some OCD issues for me, though. The house is old, so there's surely some lead paint in there, so I'm crazy paranoid about collecting all the scraped paint. And since there seems to actually only be one old coat of paint, I've been spending some time ruminating about whether 20 years ago someone sanded all the old lead paint off and it's now in my soil and the next buyer of my house will test it and then either I'll never sell the house or I'll have to pay $20,000 to fix it. So yeah, every time I go out to work, I feel a little sick to my stomach.

But I know this is one of those situations where I cannot know and I cannot fix it, so I just need to let it be.

My Disgusting Life Before OCD

I've just signed up for a kick ball tournament. What was I thinking?! But signing up, and the vague OCD fears it raised (all those people touching the ball!) reminded me of some of the things I did before OCD.

My sister and I went on an 8 week trip around the U.S. when I was in college. At one point in the desert of California, we washed our hair in a (none too clean) public bathroom sink.

In college I played softball. I was a pitcher. Which means I touched the ball on every single possession. The same ball that touched dirt and everyone's hands and probably some dog poop for good measure. Every weekend we played double headers, which meant we ate lunch in between games. I don't remember ever washing my hands. Also, I went through a phase in pitching where I LICKED MY FINGER between every.single.pitch to get a little friction on my fingers. Makes me laugh to think about how annoyed I get when people lick their fingers when flipping through paperwork. So, yeah, definitely wouldn't have been on the softball team with OCD.

And lastly, my sister and I traveled through Europe for 4 weeks the summer I graduated from college. We used to shower and then attach our wet towels to the outside of our (dirty) backpacks and away we'd go. Even my sister says she wouldn't do that now.

But of course, nothing bad ever happened, at least not so bad that I remember it now, and I never gave these things a second thought. So, yeah, the kick ball thing scares me a little, but I also expect to have some fun. Be a little of the old me for a while.