My last post was the thirteenth post. (I don't even like typing that by the way.) I tried to ignore it. I tried to deny that the number had any meaning whatsoever, but I just can't shake the feeling.
This all started when I was playing high school basketball. Everyone has some sort of rituals and being in basketball, it was a little more intense than just your morning routine. It started with free throws. I've had the same free throw routine since I was a freshman in high school and I'm a senior in college now using that routine when I go play in the gym a couple of times a week. From the free throw routine, it just kept spreading. I started to develop other routines also, from tying my shoes before games, what I ate, what I wore, etc.
After I graduated, I didn't have basketball to contain my rituals anymore. This is where the OCD comes into play. For those who don't know what OCD is, it's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I've never had anyone with the right college degree tell me that I have OCD, but I'm assuming if they were to hear everything I do, they would probably say I have a problem.
I'm not entirely sure where the OCD officially started, but before I knew it, I had a routine for everything, showering, brushing my teeth, setting my alarm, all sorts of little things. After that, it developed in other things, mostly aligning everything I own. For example, just on the table next to me, my pop is aligned, my phone and controller are aligned, and I just shut off the TV making sure it was on volume 11. I always leave my car stereo on volume 15 when I shut it off, always align my shoes in the perfect spot when I take them off, and well, the list could probably continue for awhile but you get the idea.
Sure, there are times when I wish I could just shut the TV off without worrying about the volume, or set my pop down without thinking about what direction it is facing. It actually bugs me sometimes. On the other hand, I don't think I've lost or misplaced anything in at least a couple of years unless someone moved it without my knowledge. You see, when everything you own has a certain spot you want it and a certain way you want it there, it's kind of hard to forget where that spot it. Let's take my car keys as an example. I always put my car keys in the exact same spot. I know what you're thinking, "well yeah so do a lot of people", but I bet you don't sit there for at least a couple minutes and align all of the keys perfectly and make sure they are flipped the right way. Yeah, I didn't think so.
It's not all OCD all the time. Because I'm very superstitious, it sometimes makes my OCD worse. There are 13 steps in the house I live in right now, I absolutely refuse, under any circumstance, to step on all 13 steps. I almost threw out my back carrying my dresser to my room when we moved in because I didn't want to step on all the steps. I see the number 13 at least 5 times every day. It may be weird to many people, but I feel better at the end of the day if I don't step on all the steps.
To conclude, I probably wouldn't have posted again so soon, but because my last post was the thirteenth post, I couldn't shake that feeling and needed to post again to get rid of it. Maybe I'm wrong, and 13 is actually a lucky number, but I'm not going to push my luck.
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