So . . . I Might Be Slightly Neurotic

Early in our marriage, I called my husband, Dan, at work. I had found our interior door, the one inside the garage, wide open, and I refused to go inside. I parked the car in the driveway and waited outside until he came home from work. It was pouring rain.

I don't exactly remember this incident. But Dan does. He thinks it's funny. I think it's a little crazy.

"To be fair, you had just moved in. It was a new house and a new neighborhood," Dan said while I listened and worried about my mental health. "I felt bad for you because you were scared of intruders, and you were soaked. But I also thought it was kind of weird."

"Is that when you realized you had married a crazy person?" I asked.

"No, I already knew that."

I can be neurotic.

But I can also step back and say, "Man. That was crazy of me. I'm glad I'm not like that now."

That objectivity has to count for something resembling mental stability.

As a kid, I had a recurring dream that a guy dressed in dark clothes would enter my room at night. If I was sleeping on my stomach, without a blanket or sheet covering me, he would stab me.

Even into my early adulthood, I avoided sleeping on my stomach without being covered because, you know, a blanket would totally prevent me from being stabbed.

Then, there was the other time early in our marriage that the airline lost my luggage, and Dan came back from the lobby only to find me in the hotel room crying and hyperventilating into the phone.

"I know it's not your fault! I know you didn't do this. I'm just very emotional right now!" I was sobbing at the dispatcher.

Boy, I'm glad I have better coping skills nowadays.

Maybe . . .

When the CD player in my classroom opens and closes over and over, I don't think, "My CD player must be wearing out."

Instead, I think, "It must be the music room ghost," which is a real thing and not neurotic at all.

When Dan and I returned home one evening and discovered that the twenty-year-old VCR/TV combo in our bedroom had turned on by itself and was making strange noises, I assumed that someone broke into the house, turned on the television, and left it on before stealing nothing and exiting the premises.

When the fence door swung open because of the wind, I immediately thought someone sneaked into our backyard.

Not too long ago, Dan and I were lamenting the way the steam from our shower had caused our ceiling to mildew.

"Maybe we should let open the door to let the steam out while we shower," Dan suggested.

"But how can I leave the door to the bathroom open while I shower? I don't want Norman Bates to kill me."

Sounds logical to me.

Just last week, I tried to close the garage door, but it popped back up like it had sensed something underneath it.

"I thought a person, or maybe a cat, slipped in. Hopefully, nobody's hiding in there," I told Dan.

"It's more likely that the garage door sensor was out of alignment, or you pressed the button twice."

"Yeah, I don't think so," I said. "You're going to be sorry when you find a scary man, or maybe a starving cat, in our garage."

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