Control-freakery

I worry about myself sometimes, really I do.

I have written before about how it has become very important to me to have calm and order in my life. Much more so than it ever was in the past.

Now this doesn't mean that I am a neat freak or that my home is spotless. With a dog that is constantly running in and out of the house and mud season still upon us, you should see the state of my kitchen floor! But I do need to know where to find things and I get far more pleasure from freshly-dusted, uncluttered surfaces than my former self would have thought healthy. And I have become ever so picky about how things should be done.

I also seem to have developed little rituals somewhere along the line. I have the same breakfast day in, day out without ever getting bored of it. My going-to-bed routine has ossified as well: make cup of Earl Grey tea, fill hot water bottle and put it into bed (I like a warm bed, but cold room), go out and lock the chickens up and send the dog out, fetch a glass of water, clean teeth, get into bed, read until I can't keep my eyes open any longer, drink my tea and fall into a deep, deep sleep until morning.

Even if I have people to stay, I still have to do all the steps or it doesn't feel right.

Sometimes you need to see yourself through another person's eyes. Then you realise that it probably isn't the end of the world if someone commits the heinous crime of making coffee in your favourite tea cup. It is quite scary just how easily these things can assume an exaggerated importance.

Surely I'm not ready to be a mad old widow just yet, but the list goes on and on. When someone sows a bunch of seeds for me to not quite the right depth, it really would be a bad thing to dig them all up and sow them again 'properly', wouldn't it? And it probably isn't the done thing to suggest that another person's washing-up technique is sub-optimal, particularly when they have been slaving away at the sink for ten minutes or more.

Then again, does it matter? I don't know.
Probably not in the great scheme of things, but it does seem a bit scarily controlled and not entirely normal.
Perhaps I need to practise simply letting things go for a while.