When you run wire/cable through drywall there is this spool of “wire” you use to fish down the drywall so you can attach the cable/wire to pull back up again. My job during the Home Office Rennovation/Electrical Upgrade project Donnie has embarked on is to wit for the fishing line as Donnie feeds it to me from the attic, and then attack the cord/cable/whatever for him to reel back up.
I am not very good at this.
I just never have any confidence the cord I’m sending up will stay hooked on the “fishing line” and so I wrapped it in electrical tape (none of these wires are live…I ASSURE YOU) even though Donnie says, “It won’t detach, I promise.”
“BUT WHAT IF IT DOES AND THIS COULD PREVENT IT?” I scream up towards the attic.
Then - inevitably - he can’t pull the fishing line/cord combo through the small hole in the boards the cords are supposed to be fed through in the attic to keep things organized. So we have to start over and then I use less tape to which Donnie says, “OR NO TAPE!” and it gets stuck again and then Donnie comes down from the attic and attaches it himself without tape and it keeps hold fine and then I’m sad because I thought my solution was genius.
Even though it was unnecessary.
I feel like this is me in a lot of my life. I’m constantly stressing out about Worse Case Scenarios and trying to plan accordingly and almost 100% of times it is 100% unnecessary. This would be fine if this care I take also meant that everything else was also getting the attention it deserves but no…I’ll spend an hour prepping the tornado closet with the threat of an impending storm that never comes but I’ll forget to update our car insurance and end up continuing to pay insurance for 6 months on a car that was totaled in a wreck.
It’s a strange dichotomy that exists in my brain. I’ll way over-prepare for one thing in many unnecessary ways while simultaneously neglecting a dozen other things that are important.
It would be better if I had all sorts of stories of how my preparedness saved us, but the stories that actually exist are the ones where we laugh about my unnecessary stress. Like the time I stocked up Mom’s apartment with shelf-stable food for early in the pandemic and ALL of the food was still there when she died 9 months later. She never ate any of it. On the other hand, I never remembered to put battery-powered push light on the wall of her linen closet like she asked me to a dozen times.
I wish I could tell my brain what to obsess over. It’s like it does this weird thing where it hyper-fixates on problems that don’t exist yet and completely neglects current problems that need to be solved. Oh! There’s a freelance project that’s not quite done yet and needs a few final tweaks? Instead why don’t I spend the next 72 hours clearing out my blog archives from 2007.
Contrary to how this sounds, I’m not beating myself up about it. I do have to wrestle with the same response sometimes when I have to face the outcomes of neglect in an area of my life. And I definitely wish it was different, but I’m also learning to recognize that no one’s brain perfectly prioritizes things how they wish it would. Sometimes we obsess over exes from relationships we really wish we’d get over, stalking their social media profiles to find evidence of new love interests. Other times we can’t seem to forget about the time that family member said something hurtful, even after we’ve long set boundaries to avoid future pain. Then there are the days we are determined to organize that one drawer in the bathroom while the laundry has been neglected for 6 days.
This is human, I am learning to accept. And this is frustrating but also beautiful. And sometimes we connect with people over our shared mental hurdles and so while it’s a pain to my husband that I make a task take 20 minutes longer because I’m preparing for a problem that never happens, I also bond with a friend who laments being fired from helping her Mom reorganize her closet because she was constantly worrying they were putting the wrong things in easy-to-access spots. “BUT WHAT IF YOU END UP NEEDING THAT VACUUM PACK SEALER EVERY DAY?”
So here’s to bonding over the things our brains do that drive us crazy, but also seeing the beauty in the humanity of it all.
I tend to "play" the worst case scenario game in my head about THE worst case scenario. Example: I had to take my cat to the vet yesterday and I kept replaying scenarios in my head where the vet would say she needs to be put to sleep, to the point I was so sad and almost crying. This occurred even though she was eating, and purring, and acting mostly normal. It's the same as you stated, if I prepare myself mentally and emotionally for it, then maybe it will make it easier. When in reality, when I really think about it, it likely won't make it any easier AT ALL! I am just oddly torturing myself.