Lately, like a devil on my shoulder, I have been plagued by the inability to stop my hands from doing the thing that my brain should not have sent it to do in the first place. Little things. Things that I don’t even notice. Things that mean nothing but can not be stopped. Today for instance, and yesterday and last week, I was peeling a grapefruit. I love grapefruit. Juicy sweet and sour grapefruit. Not like a bland orange, grapefruit is like the fruit tree of dog, but really what fruit isn’t. (An aside on oranges, how can a fruit so eehhh produce a juice so amazing, ponder that for a while while I sing his cousins praise.)
So there I am with my grapefruit, starting to peel it apart. First long standing, but as far as I am concerned, justifiable OCD. The inner peel. I am not talking the hard yellow outer shell that wraps and protects the fruit, I am talking the soft inner skin that absorbs the shock put upon the outer shell so the beautiful pulp is not smashed. The layers that are left when the peel is pulled from the fruit. The white part. The thick part. My OCD—this white layer must be removed before starting to eat the grapefruit. Can not even eat the sweet fruit until it is removed. I am like a machine, methodical and exacting in the removal of the white flesh. But, like I said, this to me is completely sane and rational.
What is not are my more recent findings—the devil on my shoulder. My latest adventures with grapefruit have proven oddly compulsive. I am not a big fan of the skin that wraps each wedge of fruit. I like the pulppy mass that drips from my mouth. Now, his is fine at home, on a Sunday, enjoying a leisurely breakfast. I can pull all the skin off the wedge eat the pulp. I had never thought this to be a must, just a bonus if I had the time. To back track, aside from the white skin, I can not also eat a doubled up wedge. Cut in half and served brunch style, if the the skin from one wedge is joined with the skin from another, no go. I must separate and eat. The skin is just too fibrous to eat dual layered. I can not do it. As bread on my grapefruit sandwich, that is fine. But back to the OCD of late. I find myself, for the third time last night, that I can not stop myself from tearing it apart to get to the pulp, and the pulp only. Sure, ripping a grapefruit apart is slightly messy at best, but it is still control-able. It is actually the perfect fruit, next to a banana, for on the go eating. Doesn’t need to be washed (really, why would you), pulls open with a little effort (try that with a pineapple), and breaks apart into mouth sized pieces. Nothing better. So I find myself, in public, nice clean clothes, not being able to stop myself from ripping apart my perfectly sectioned and wedged grapefruit, so that all I have is the pulp. Making a mess of me, the seat I am sitting on and the floor below. But, I find I can not stop.
This is the most recent, but not the only moment like this. Many others like this. I don’t think I have always been like this. I am trying to piece together memories to determine if this is just old conditioning. The first to really trigger my awareness of my OCD was recently. Two months ago I am driving on a major highway. Before me I look down. My registration to the world of cars in this land is not quite fully adhered to the window. I stare at it. I obsess over it. I think about how long it will be before I can push the little corner, no bigger than a tic-tac, back to the window, hoping it still has its stickiness to stick with. I watch the road, I look down at the sticker. Road, sticker, sticker, road. I realize, it will be some time, at least an hour, before I can reach down and rub my fingers across the corner.I can reach down now. Now would be a good time. Now would be well, right now. I wouldn’t have to wait any longer. I wouldn’t have to worry about it. WORRY ABOUT IT? It would be over and I could continue my journey.I can do this while one hand is stearing. I inch up, slowly. I reach, just a little out of, reaching farther, I just about have it, and swerve, thumop, thumo, thump, thump, thump, thump the moment my finger touches this protruding edge. I hop back in place, control myself and the car and wonder what made me think I could reachdown my spaceship like windshield and put the corner, having collected dust for weeks, back to the glass. I compose myself, wonder what is wrong with myself, and think to myself, how long will it be before I can park the car and try again