On Obsession

I worry that I'll be like her. That I'll turn into her. That what I see now as abnormality, illness even, I will one day see as normal. I will one day accept as my own.

And I know I'm smarter than that. I know it can't happen to me. I won't let it. I'm aware, after all. I know what is normal and what is not. I know what is not normal. Right? Right.

Except then I have nights when I spend hours rummaging through boxes of things I haven't seen in years. Things I haven't used or yearned for or even thought about in forever. I spend hours looking for who knows what, little pieces of me I didn't even know I was missing. Little things I don't need.

A stuffed Eeyore in a graduation cap and gown from when I graduated high school. An old, broken jewelry box with a few inexpensive, mostly broken necklaces. A porcelain hand-held mirror with the face of a girl painted on the back, yarn glued on for hair. Little things I don't need that have now taken up residence in my very limited space.

And I spend hours looking for a sweater I haven't used all summer that I just decided right now I need to have. And I watch multiple episodes of a television show I don't really care about in lieu of actually taking care of things that need doing.

And I wonder was this how she was when she was younger? Did she even then save all sorts of things? Did she even then live among piles and piles of stuff she didn't need?

Or was she sort of like this? Getting obsessed every once in a while by a random thing here and there but mostly just being normal. Mostly just dreaming about a future she couldn't grasp in her hands quite yet. Waiting, waiting, waiting for everything to fall into place. Waiting for this unseen future that I now despise.