Even Numbers

While I was at home for Christmas I received a little revelation about myself. An explanation. An "Ohmigosh, maybe I'm NOT completely insane...." moment.

I was sitting on the couch, my Dad laying on the other. Everyone had just left, and we were both sitting there quietly. Me, thinking about how GREAT it was to be home, and my Dad...well...probably wishing for a nap. I started watching my Dad's feet move, something I've done my entire life without thinking twice about it. Ever since I can remember, if he's sitting, he's constantly moving his feet. Like he's trying to direct a symphony with them. There's an order to it, sometimes they're tapping, sometimes they're swooping around. We've always teased him about it, but this time was different. For some reason, I asked him why he was doing that. He stopped, paused, and then said "I don't know." Typical, right? But I continued -

"Because I do that all the time. But I'm doing it for a reason. I'm counting stuff. I just counted all the cupboards in the kitchen. There's 28. I did it in the old house too, there's 36. I'll count lights in the room. Stairs. Cushions. Road signs. The little yellow dotted lines on the road. The features on people's faces. Anything really - but always in two's. You know, like, two eyebrows, two eyes, two nostrils, two cheeks, two ears, two lips, two rows of teeth."

................Long pause. I start to wonder why in the WORLD I just said that out loud.

"Really?"

"Yeah." Wait, was that...intrigue in his voice?

"Because I've done that my whole life."

.......wha?

He continues, "Yeah. I actually saw something on tv once about it. It's a small form of OCD."

"Really?!" Ohmigosh, IT'S TRUE!!!!!!! I DO have OCD!!!!!

We continued talking about it for a bit. It was the first time in my entire life I've told ANYONE about it. I didn't even tell Caleb until days later on the way home, and he knows pretty much everything about me. I don't know why, I'm not ashamed of it, just never really thought anything about it. Sometimes it bothers me, because once I start, I hate to stop. I have to FORCE myself to stop. I'll do it when I'm having a conversation with someone. Especially the face one. It doesn't happen all the time, but pretty frequently. And I like things to be even. I like to start on the left foot and end on the right. Taping down, left foot then right, and counting in my head "Two, four, six, eight..." Sometimes I'll start with the right foot just to END on it, because if things aren't even, at least I ended on the right. That makes me feel better about them being odd.

So I decided to start searching the internet about it, and realized I do some other things as well. Making sure both feet step in the same square on the sidewalk, making sure my foot lands on the emblem of the treadmill I'm running on, to name a few. Thankfully none of them negatively affect my life. It's just sorta weird to know that after all these years of joking about it? It's actually TRUE!

"THERE ARE DOZENS OF US!!!" Little quote from Tobias there.....had to.

And......now you all know my dark dark secret. :) I'm a freak. But hey! At least I now know there's a reason. For me being a freak I mean. Instead of, ya know, because I'm just a freak.