2010: Year of the OCD Woo Woo Priestess

So, first I should probably tell you: I think I am in the midst of one of those Garden State-esque Journeys to Enlightenment sorts of grieving processes, except mine started waaaaaay late and doesn’t have any great iconic Screaming Into the Abyss moments. Instead, it’s like my OCD tendencies merged with my occasional forays into Woo Woo — previously dallied with in the forms of meditation, tarot, pagan festivals, Wiccan philosophy — and now I am all about Personal Development and Growth and Health and Organization and Full Engagement, all filtered through the Getting Things Done cult and my own personal magic wand: the post-it.

I told you OCD was involved.

2009 started out as the Year of the Angry-Sad Drowned Rat. Things were BAD. I was grieving my father, hovering anxiously over my mother and grandmother, flailing around with my dissertation, and watching helplessly as the majority of my friendships became toxic. At a certain point, though, I hit my limit. I’m not really sure what it was that did it. Maybe I got tired of apologizing for being an utter mess, especially when I had a sneaking suspicion that several of the people I was apologizing to most often should have been apologizing to me. I don’t know exactly what it was, but I didn’t like it, and I decided to change my life.

I’ve blogged before about how I got back on top of things professionally, but I don’t think I’ve said much about what I did at the personal level. So here it is: I dumped some of my friends. I made standing monthly dates with others so that I could re-invest in the relationships that made me happy. I instituted some difficult boundaries with family. I even went to therapy and, after some persuasion, came to agree that perhaps going to the park to throw rocks at happy people wasn’t the most productive way to process my grief. I started smiling again, for real.

By the fall of 2009, I was reading all sorts of personal development books, following the bibliographies of books I liked to find other books I liked. I am not interested in Reinventing the Wheel. If someone already has a sensible method for making the kinds of changes I want to make, I am perfectly content to follow their lead. I started thinking about what I wanted for 2010, but instead of waiting and making all sorts of New Year’s Resolutions I knew I’d never keep, I went ahead and kept on making the changes as they occurred to me. Maybe you can meditate and achieve a state of enlightenment when you have dishes in the sink and clothes on the floor and dirty litter stinking up the house and unanswered emails piling up, but I CANNOT.

Inspired by Jim Loehr and the FlyLady (a strange combination, I know) I instituted morning and evening routines so I could stay on top of my basic work life and housecleaning. After a month or two, I couldn’t go to sleep without doing the dishes. It was a COMPULSION. I should tell you, I HATE doing the dishes, and I don’t have a dishwasher, so, for me, achieving this sort of soapy water zen state is a big step. A little before Thanksgiving I got it in my head to start exercising again. I have never been able to maintain any kind of exercise regimen for the purpose of Potential Hotness. If it comes down to taking a nap now or getting hit on by a stranger in three months, I will always choose the nap. However, I want a job when I finish my PhD, and I read a study that said skinny people are more likely to get hired, so that got me thinking. Now the choice wasn’t between a nap and a future come-on, it was between the nap and my ability to buy Future Pizza and Books. So of course I started working out four times a week, because Future Pizza is worth fighting for. It later occurred to me that it would also be kind of nice to not die at 58 like my dad, so I should pay attention to my health a little bit more and work out for Future Pizza With a Whole Wheat Crust. I did the routine thing again, and what do you know? This time the working out / eating right thing finally stuck. Or at least it has so far. I’m into January and things are Looking Good. I have MUSCLES in my ARMS. Who knew?

Now, in order to actually get all my stuff today done, I have to stop blogging now, even though I still haven’t even begun to extol the Power of Post-Its or tell you Why a Little OCD is a Good Thing or explain The Great Uncluttering or How I Went to Dissertation Boot Camp and Became A God. I guess those will be future posts.

I just wanted to stop in now, though, since I’ve been absent a while, and say Hi. Welcome to 2010. I will be your OCD Woo Woo Priestess for the year.

Related Posts:

Joining the Cult <- My ode to Getting Things Done
Iceberg Ahead! Living Between Crises <- My something's gotta change post
The Deep End (a personal note) <- The one where I announced my dad had died