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| Yucky scar |
I have fought my OCD for years. And when I say fought, I mean FOUGHT. I have straightened things that were already straight, rearranged things that were perfectly fine exactly where they were, and lined things up so precisely that I’m pretty sure a ruler would have been impressed. Crooked pictures? Absolutely not. Uneven labels? Call the authorities. Something sitting just slightly askew? My brain would not rest until it had been corrected. For years, I managed to keep this particular battle somewhat under control. Then I had knee replacement surgery, and apparently my new knee has decided it would like to join the fight, and it is firmly on the side of “Girl, you're going to have to let some things go.”
There are things I simply can't do the way I used to. I can't bend down low enough to get into the bathtub comfortably. I can't sit on the floor. I can't kneel to pray. And for someone who has spent a lifetime believing that everything has a proper place, a proper position, and preferably a proper angle, this has been quite the adjustment. My knee has basically become the boss of my body, and apparently it has very little patience for my need to have everything perfectly organized.
Today, I was working on my craft shelving unit. I decided to put labels on the drawers because, naturally, if you're going to have craft supplies, you need to know exactly where everything belongs. I was happily labeling away until I got to the drawers near the bottom. And there they were: crooked. Not horribly crooked. Not even noticeably crooked to a normal human being. But crooked enough that my OCD immediately sounded the alarm. Normally, I would have gotten down on the floor, adjusted myself into whatever position was necessary, squinted one eye, tilted my head, moved the label approximately 1/16 of an inch, stepped back, looked at it again, and repeated the process until it was perfectly straight. But there was one small problem: my knee said no.
I couldn't get down there. I couldn't sit on the floor. I couldn't contort myself into the human pretzel position required to make those little labels perfectly straight. So I stood there looking at them, and they looked back at me. Crooked. I could almost hear my OCD whispering, “You're really going to leave that like that?” And for perhaps the first time in my life, I thought, “Yep. I might.” Now, let's be clear. This is not some miraculous transformation where I've suddenly become the woman who can walk past a crooked picture and sleep peacefully that night. I'm not there yet. There is still a tiny voice in my head that wants to fix everything from the crooked throw pillow to the picture frame that's approximately one millimeter off center.
But I've decided to see how long I can let those labels stay crooked. Maybe an hour. Maybe a day. Maybe until Jesus comes back. I'm kidding. Probably. The truth is, living with OCD can be exhausting. For those of us who struggle with it, the things that seem insignificant to everyone else can feel incredibly significant to us. Someone else may look at a crooked label and see a crooked label. We may look at it and feel like our entire brain has just been handed a fire alarm. That's why I'm learning that sometimes the victory isn't making everything perfect. Sometimes the victory is leaving it imperfect. Sometimes winning means walking away. Sometimes it means resisting that overwhelming urge to fix, straighten, organize, check, or redo something one more time.
And sometimes, apparently, winning means having a knee replacement that physically prevents you from getting down there to straighten the stupid label. Who knew my orthopedic surgeon would become part of my OCD treatment plan? I'm learning something important through all of this: I don't have to be controlled by the need for everything to be just right. I can be uncomfortable and still be okay. I can look at something crooked and remind myself that crooked doesn't mean catastrophic. I can leave something unfinished or imperfect and allow my mind to discover that the world doesn't actually end.
Maybe that's what I'm going to call this season: The Season of Letting the Label Be Crooked. It may not sound very profound, but for someone like me, it actually is. If you struggle with OCD, anxiety, perfectionism, or that relentless little voice that tells you something simply must be fixed before you can relax, I want you to know you're not alone. I understand the frustration. I understand how something seemingly insignificant can become a very big deal inside your head, and I'm learning right alongside you.
Today, my labels aren't perfectly straight. My knee won't let me fix them. My OCD really doesn't like that. But you know what? We're all going to survive. And maybe tomorrow I'll look at those crooked labels and laugh instead of reaching for a ruler. Or maybe I'll eventually figure out some creative way to fix them without bending my knee. After all, I'm still me. I'm just learning that sometimes a little crooked is okay, and maybe that's a lesson I needed long before I ever had knee replacement surgery.
