What day is it!!??

It matters. And yes this retirement thing is messing up my internal calendar. Is there such a thing? I googled it and got no results, well, no results related to what I meant by it.

Last Sunday I woke up at my normal time, 4.30 a.m. - as it was Sunday, one of the two days in the week that I don't work out, I decided to have an extra thirty minutes - the laundry could wait. The laundry! I never put the hamper outside the bedroom door last night, I will have to remember to get it when I get up and bring it down with me. Just before 5 a.m. I got up, took the clothes hamper from the closet as quietly as I could and went downstairs. I left the hamper at the door to the laundry room and carried on down to the bathroom that I normally use, in order to avoid waking my husband at that ungodly hour.

When I started brushing my hair I was a bit perturbed to notice that it really needed a wash - normally on my non workout days, Friday and Sunday, I don't wash my hair and it looks fine. Oh no! is it not Sunday!? I looked out of the bathroom into the bedroom that serves as my office / sewing room; there I have an atomic clock (I mentioned before I am obsessed with time) - it told me that today is Saturday!!! 

I can't explain how much that disturbed me. I really need to know what day it is; now that I am retired, it is somehow even more important. 

I tried to suck it up, got into my workout clothes and hit the treadmill 30 minutes later than normal. I am retired so what should that matter? For the rest of the morning I was just not myself, not exactly in a bad mood - but I felt like I got out of the bed on the wrong side - or on the wrong day!

Now I am trying to think of a way to find a solution to this problem. I could work out every morning but that won't help me know what day it is; perhaps I could stop being quite so OCD and deal with it? I searched online for clocks that project the day of the week on the ceiling, the way my clock projects the time but couldn't find any. I am not sure how much information my husband would tolerate being projected onto the ceiling before he found it irritating; he is patient but everyone has a limit.

I decided to try the trick I used when I was advised not to sleep on my right side while my shoulder was healing. I repeated in my head as I was going to sleep - "don't roll over onto your right side" - it worked up to a point. On the few occasions that I did roll over I woke up immediately, not because it hurt but because my brain washing technique woke me up. When I was working, on weekdays I woke up at 2.15 a.m. like clockwork, without ever setting an alarm, other than the one inside my heard. That gave me time to workout and be at my desk by 4.30.  Since retiring, I wake up at 4.30 like clockwork - because that is when I want to get up. 

I decided to test that internal clock to see if it had a calendar attached. I repeat "tomorrow is [whatever day it is going to be]" as I am going to sleep, I will wake up knowing and not have to worry. So far that is working for me. 

I did some research to see if I could find the good, the bad and the ugly of suffering from OCD. I found a lot of stuff on the advantages. Had to share this one blog because it referred to silver linings. And this one listed four advantages, each of which I believe helped me to be a better Quality Assurance Engineer and Manager.

•   Heightened Creativity 
•   Detail-Oriented 
•   Driven 
•   Greater Empathy
  

And yes, I know I am more that a little bit peculiar - Amazon used to admire that quality. And naturally, I have blogged before about my possible neurotic tendencies. I guess just being aware that I am OCD and concentrating on the advantages is enough? Besides, I don't think I want to 'fix' it, I like me the way I am.