Obsessive complusive

I am obsessive compulsive.

They say that admitting it is the first step on the road to recovery. I am not an A type personality. I am not a go getter. I am not the type of person who usually feels like things have to be just so. My house is not fanatically cleaned on a daily, weekly or even a monthly basis. I try to keep it picked up and things put away. Sometimes. I generally do the dishes after each meal, though, sometimes I forget or just let the two or three dishes sit in the sink until I get several more, at least enough to make it worth while to fill up the sink with water to wash them. My shoes usually end up at the end of the bed where I take them off and Ray sometimes has to remind me to hang up my clothes when the pile on the hope chest at the end of the bed gets to high to see the TV over. I don’t think I’m a slob; I am just not a neatnik who has to have everything spotless all the time.

My desk at work probably bothers me more than my house does, it seems like it is never neat and organized. I try, but for some reason, it never seems neat to me.

All in all I am a pretty kick back relax type person. Yet, sometimes there are certain things that I feel just need to be done a certain way. They are pretty dumb things too, if I have to really admit it. For example, my co-worker and friend Tamra brought me some invoices to fold. Then came back with a credit card receipt to add to one of the invoices, she stapled it to the invoice then proceeded to fold the invoice. She took the bottom of the paper and brought it a third of the way up and folded the bottom before folding the top of the invoice over and lining it up with the fold on the bottom. It was like nails on a chalk board. The hair went up on the back of my head and I held my breath. My whole being ached to tell her she was doing it wrong, yet it was she that was folding the paper, her paper, from her desk, her invoices. What right do I have to tell her she is folding the paper wrong?

Calmly, I took a breath and said. “Tamra, did you know that I am obsessive compulsive.”

She laughed, “Yes, about somethings. I’m folding the paper wrong aren’t I.”