Crazy, or Motivated?

So, I have this problem.

When I get an idea in my head, it has to happen. Instantly. I have zero patience in this regard. I can’t wait until next week or tomorrow or even this afternoon.

Now.

Sophia constantly comments on my lack of patience. And it does have it’s drawbacks. I get very testy, anxious, in the rare event that I can’t make something happen quickly enough. Depressed even. I become obsessed with whatever the thing is that I want to get done or have happen until it is accomplished. However, this rather annoying trait of mine is what makes me get shit done. If I want something, I make it happen and then can happily move onto the next item. This isn’t something that happens on a daily basis, but often enough to drive those around me more than a little crazy. *shrug* take the good with the bad. I wouldn’t be where I am without this little spark of crazy I get occasionally.

More often than not, this happens with smaller projects in my life. I dropped one of my framed Jimi Hendrix posters and busted it when hanging it up in my room when we first moved into the house. I had it in my mind that I was going to finish decorating my room that day, and this put a snag in my plan. Therefore, I needed a new poster frame. Do you know that my crazy ass went to three different stores before I found the right size poster frame? Things like this. Things that are insignificant to others but I fixate on. Not long after that a bulb blew in a wax warmer of mine. Same deal. Three different stores before I found it. And then I could move on with my life.

I’d have to be a little crazy to deal with this life of mine, right? So there it is for you.

Often this happens with my writing, too. If I don’t sit down and write a piece all in one sitting, it gets put on the back burner and forgotten, sometimes for months, or even years at this point. It’s hard to pick up the flow after you leave off. So nine times out of ten, something you read on here was typed in an obsessive frenzy in one sitting. I do take a break after the initial writing of a piece to breathe and come down from that writing high before I edit. Sometimes an hour or two, usually about five minutes. Because it nags at me that it’s not published, and distracts me.

Another example –

I was supposed to get Chase a sandbox a couple years ago for his birthday. It never happened for this reason and that reason. And as I thought about it one Friday afternoon, the more it nagged at me. I don’t like not coming through for my kids. Chase was set to be gone with his dad for the weekend, and I was planning on a small little party for him on Sunday for his birthday. So, why not make the sandbox happen? But see, I’m still exploring building things, and I lack confidence in this area. Put four pieces of wood together and throw some sand in it, right? Nope. I’m not a half assed kind of person. I do like shortcuts though! So I googled “sandbox kits”. Give me all the pieces, in a box, with directions, and this girl can do anything. Usually. Let’s not talk about the basketball hoop that I fucked up, okay? Anyway, so everything I was finding online was “order now! FREE two day shipping!” Well, fuck your two days, I wanted all the shit that night. So, I left work at 5pm with it in my head that I was going to do this, immediately. I was not unrealistic enough to think I could get it built that night. But I could at least get the components.

And again, three different stores, in sixty degree rainy spring weather to get what I wanted.

I came home with my jeans wet almost to the knees, more my hair a magnificent mess from humidity and rain, and more than a little annoyed with the general public.

But. . .

Chase got his sandbox. And is using it happily to this day.

These are small examples of my near obsessive nature.

It also happens with bigger life problems, just a little less often. Luckily my larger life problems have seemed to taper off over the last year or so (knock on wood). When I do run up against something that is just a little beyond my control though, my brain nags and overthinks to the point where I am anxious, until I either have the answer for whatever issue lays in front of me, or I can find a way to shrug my shoulders and move past it.

This can prove problematic, since not everything in life is as cut and dried and black and white as I would prefer for it to be.

This is when I really drive my friends batshit crazy. Because I call them and run this scenario and that scenario by them, trying to talk out how I’m going to solve the problem at hand.

Luckily my friends are super supportive of my brand of crazy, and listen to me rant incessantly about things that I absolutely have no power to fix or figure out. Things that just have to play out in their own time.

I’m trying really hard to work on this issue. I realize how pointless it is. I do truly believe that everything happens when and if it’s supposed to, and everything happens for a reason. I understand that life can’t always be easy, problems can’t always be solved immediately, I can’t always search through three stores and come out with the solution to a life problem like I can when I need to fix a tangible, fixable item.

That doesn’t mean that my brain doesn’t try to, though.

I’ve learned to redirect myself, no different than I’ve taught my kids. It never occured to me that the things I am teaching them are things I need to actually be working on my damn self.

So I redirect my attention to something I can control and handle and obtain – actually, I think I very recently wrote a post about this. Driving, writing, doing, going, being. I distract myself until the problem solves itself, or removes itself from my life – whichever comes first. Either way, it’s always a relief.

It doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t still nag, and bug me. It just means for periods of time I can remove myself from the problem and deal with the other smaller, less complicated problems that arise regularly in my life. Eventually this form of distraction lessens the larger problem’s hold over me, and I can move past it.

That’s all I can do. Bitch to my friends, and redirect myself.

I was recently told that my boarder line obsessive nature isn’t a bad thing, it’s a gift. It allows me to fully analyze a problem, see all angles, and solve it, or learn from it. Again, whichever comes first.

So while I am trying to curb myself a little in this regard, I’m also embracing it a little.

After all, if I didn’t have this obsessive nature, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Happy Monday, ya’ll. Embrace even the bad parts of yourself. There’s always some good to find in it, even if it’s learning what you want to change in yourself.