Last weekend I lost it over a pile of socks.
It was a pile of socks I had been staring at for more than a year before finally trying, and failing, to do something with.
I used to have a system. When an odd sock came out of the wash I would put it in a basket in the corner of my room. Periodically I would upend the basket and paw through it, reuniting them with their mates.
I don’t know when the basket became a monster.
One day the multicoloured mess became insurmountable. I had so many socks I couldn’t close my sock draw and the unmatched pile had become a semi-dormant cotton volcano threatening to erupt.
The odd sock basket came with me when we moved to our new house – and sat there for a year.
It would glare at me malevolently, reminding me that we had been in our new home for 365 days and I still didn’t have my shit sorted.
The sock pile embarrassed me. I would shove it in a corner and forget about it for a while – then another odd sock would turn up. I would promise myself I would take the basket upstairs, sit in front of the telly and sort the damned thing out – but then I’d be too tired from work, I’d have to cook dinner, there were cat videos on the internet that needed watching…
Yes I realise I was projecting onto the basket. My socky nemesis became a representation of all the things in my life I had been putting off doing. If I could conquer the pile of socks, then everything else would follow.
So that was what I was going to do last weekend. I was finally going to slay the sock monster.
I had a plan. I was going to watch Guardians of the Galaxy in preparation for seeing the second film before it finished in the theatres, dump Mount Socksuvius on the floor and sort it out while watching something that made me smile.
It all fell to pieces when I couldn’t make that happen. I missed the film being on television and was annoyed with myself for that, but that was okay because it was on Netflix -I’d checked the night before. Only it wasn’t, it was only on Netflix US not NZ. I tried TV on demand, nope. Lightbox, nope. It was a 2014 film for chrissakes, it should’t be so hard!
This upset me much, much, more that it should have.
The problem with being a functioning nutbar is that you often have no idea what silly little thing will make that functioning stop.
OCD is like that for me. Most of the time I’m pretty flexible. If situations change on me I can go with the flow and find a way to make things work. Other times I plan things meticulously in my head and if things don’t conform 100% to that plan I get really upset – irrationally so. The worst part of it is, I know it’s irrational. That’s why it’s so frustrating. I know it doesn’t make sense to feel so upset, but that doesn’t stop me wanting to stomp my feet and pull my hair out.
There doesn’t always have to be a reason, but this time I think there was. I was a bit stressed, my circadian rhythms were only just starting to sort themselves out after returning from my first (non-sailing related) OE, I was trying to start a new writing project (more detail on that, and the OE, in the next blog) and it seemed my house and garden were falling down around my ears. I was trying to do all of things and achieving none of the things and now I couldn’t even watch my movie and organise my damned socks.
Chucking them out and starting again wasn’t an option. I have issues letting go. I like my socks – they’re interesting. They have cats and boats and skull and crossbones, stripes and spots and so many shades of orange.
Of course you can match cats and boats or spots and stripes, I do that all the time – and I have done that with as many as I can, but some are different sizes or different types. Some are gym socks, some are socks to wear with boots. It doesn’t always work.
One of the upsides of having OCD is that, usually, this sort of thing is fun. I love organising books, sorting out nuts and bolts on the the boat, colour coding buttons – but for this one I have a massive block.
And what did I do with the ones that didn’t match? I didn’t want to put them in the landfill, I don’t think socks are recyclable and odd socks are a pretty stink thing to donate to an op shop.
Paddy, who had been stoically coping with my irrational anger and looming tears, came to the rescue with that one. Car enthusiasts use a lot of scrap material as cleaning rags when they are tinkering around with their automobiles. I could put the ones I wasn’t going to keep in a rag bag and chuck that in the clothing bin. No sock left behind!
As I sat there contemplating the pile in the middle of the floor and I had a sock-related epiphany.
The sockpocalypse (asockalypse?) I was staring at was a perfect metaphor for my own brain. It’s exactly what I imagine it looks like in there – an unruly pile of colours and textures that don’t always always do what they’re told.
A bright, beautiful pile of crazy that’s sometimes impossible to keep under control.
I love it and I hate it and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The best socks I have ever owned have all been bought for me by my Mum. They come in packs of three and either all of them match or none of them do. They’re interchangeable so it doesn’t matter if you lose one and I think they’re the answer for me.
The socks, like my brain, are a little bit different and help me do things in my own way.
I went out yesterday and bought Guardians of the Galaxy on DVD so I can watch it any damned time I please.
The giant pile of socks is still there, it’s in the middle of the lounge so I can’t miss it. I know it’s silly, but I feel like if I can get that under control I’ll be able to handle everything else.
I’ll get the house and garden sorted, I’ll start exercising again and I’ll write – a lot. Watch this space!