I am a planner. I have tried to stop overplanning everything, but its been a tough battle. I write lists and rewrite lists and then rewrite those lists. It bothers me when things don’t work out like I thought they would. I have always been this way, but it went into hyperdrive when I was on Paxil and any small OCD tendencies were magnified a million times over. It’s been nearly five years since I stopped taking that stuff, but some of the behaviors are still there.
So when I start to make a grocery list and clip coupons, I have to take a deep breath and not picture the entire grocery shopping trip in my mind. It’s hard to do.
With the stress that we are currently having, writing out a grocery list the other night and clipping coupons for two hours while I watched Season 1 of The Good Wife on DVD seriously relaxed me. I didn’t obsess over any of it, but the familiarity of the list making and the nerdiness of getting excited over a new Country Crock coupon made me calm for a little while.
I don’t really know where I was headed with this post other than to say that I am aware of the things that I need to work on and sometimes the things that used to make me crazy can still be a source of calmness for an almost sane person.
It’s that sense of normalcy that can be so calming. On a side note, I NEED TO DO THAT. I desperately need to make a list and go to the store. Coupons help, too.
Lisa recently posted..1940′s Census
I agree, plus the having to concentrate on what I was doing kept my mind off of all of the other crap that’s going on.
We all have these little idiosyncrasys (may be spelt wrong) they are just part of what makes us,us…………..
Jo-Anne recently posted..Forgiveness
… and if I wasn’t a listmaker then nothing would ever get done around our house … I love my lists
I totally get how that is calming. First of all, it is just something normal and everyday, but not chore-ish. At the moment, that alone is relaxing in comparison to everything else you have to take care of. And second of all, it’s a work that structures something. If relaxing with that is weird, I’m weird, too. My supermarket chain had something for a half year where with every purchase, you’d get a little pack of cards with pictures of bands in them, numbered one to 96. Bands I have no interest in and don’t even all know. But I still enjoyed opening the stupid things and checking which numbers I already had and then sorting them. And since they are not giving out the packs anymore, I’ll simply throw them away now. But the few minutes I spent with that were almost like a little treat after shopping.
Ok, now that I’ve written it out it really makes me look like a freak, doesn’t it. Oh well. *waves flag*
I completely understand. I get weirdly excited when something is on sale AND I have a coupon of it.