justice and affection

when other people begin to tell stories about their own childhood experiences and habits, i begin to realize that there may have been a few things wrong with me. the revelation has been gradual and gentle, but there is something there that has been demanding to be unveiled for years. it is probably a good thing i didn't volunteer for all of those psych studies in college. who knows what could have become of me!
i had hundreds of stuffed animals when i was small. and at any given time dozens , maybe even a hundred or so, would be displayed in my room in neatly ordered arrangements that resembled stadium crowds without the bleachers. really, it was more of a mosh pit, but a very calculated one. everyone had a spot and each tiny creature fit tidily into her or his location with a perfect view of anything that may go on in the room. (this just triggered a memory of a time that i arranged the chorus of fluffy creatures around sara's face. i will have to find that photo and scan it into this post.) i loved each of these faux creatures equally, or at least that is what i would have them believe. i tended to genuinely believe that my little animals could see and hear and understand me and each was capable of the full range of human emotion. this being the case, i had to be very careful to approach the crowd with a spirit and heart of justice. if i picked up the small brown bear dressed as santa claus, for example, then it would become absolutely essential that i pick up each and every one of the other animals with the same level of intimacy. if the bear had gotten a two-handed squeeze, everyone got a two-handed squeeze. if a kiss was offered, it was a kiss for all. i can't even begin to describe the agony of maintaining equality in this ritual. and a ritual it most certainly was. i could be through 3 or 4 dozen animals when i would spot one in my periphery..."did care bunny get a kiss? if so did i pick her up and kiss her or did i cheat her of my full affection and simply lean forward to provide a thoughtless peck. now, who was next...where was i?" by this time i had to start over. now the first round of babies was going to get two kisses for sure and those i was unsure about would require an extra gentle snuggle or an extended holding session just to make sure things were still fair. "now hugging koalas got two kisses and an extra hug by accident!" everyone would now have to receive the gratuitous hug that had been previously withheld from them. by the end, the last group would have to receive 12 short kisses on the cheek, two cheek hugs, eye-contact, a squeeze with one hand then a squeeze with two hands and an extra loving firmness in the act of replacement to the milieu. some days i would subject myself to this affection infection two or three times. the rare occasions when it went smoothly and justly the first time were always reason for relief and celebration. sometimes the celebration would involve doing the whole routine a second time just because the first time was so nice. i was entering into a dangerous game and i knew this. blast the times it did not go well. why didn't i just stop!?!?
in high school, i would recall this (whatever, i was probably still doing it) and i remember consciously making the decision to interpret the behavior as an inherent sense of justice and compassion. i was a person with an empathetic spirit and i just wanted everyone to know my love equally. no one should be left out or their significance minimized. i could lie in bed agonizing over how many butterfly kisses pink pony got and if it was the same number and intensity as dirty dog. i could even get up in the middle of the night and rectify the potential injustice. i could spend the witching hour performing this necessary task and fall asleep in the bathtub the next morning from exhaustion. i could do these things if i wanted to. i was a kind person. that was my temporary interpretation. it lasted through most of college. then i started to tell people about my "adorable quirks" as a youngster. this story coupled with a description of the anxiety that mounted when presented with a bowl of lucky charms or any other marshmallowed or mulit-colored cereal provided a bit of a different picture. rainbow order for the marshmallows and all the gross brown pieces first! this was the rule and it COULD NOT BE BROKEN. if ever a green clover slipped onto the spoon while i was on orange stars, panic was imminent. now i had to work a single green clover into the pattern while limiting the unrest caused to the rest of the colors. "three oranges, one green, two oranges, one green. i got through all of the pink hearts without incident, so i should go back to that pattern with yellow moons. all the yellow moons. now green clover, purple horseshoe, two greens, one purple. three greens, one purple. all of the blues uninterrupted. life was so difficult. and i remember the shadow of failure that loomed over my shoulders throughout the school day on the mornings that i was unable to complete breakfast precisely. the biggest problem was that those damn marshmallows always clung to the bottom of the spoon as if 2% milk was able to morph into some kind of mystery adhesive substance solely when presented with the opportunity to fuck up breakfast for me.
you get the point. justice, empathy, perfectionism, attention to detail. i could call it anything i want, but i am grown now. it is time to be real. that shit is diagnosable. and required exercises such as these comprise about a third of my childhood memories. when i picture my bedroom i see me kissing things. i picture the kitchen and i am neurotically checking the bottom of my spoon for parasitic marshmallows of the wrong complexion. it can be fun to strain my memory for further evidence of such tendencies and to tell about it inspires laughter and intrigue, but if i think about it for too long, i get a little sad. that poor little girl. all of the requirements that only she knew about and compelled herself to obey. all alone, demanding rigid adherence to the rules with only the quietest nagging sense of what kind of awful thing might happen to her if she failed to comply. never even one time stopping and recognizing the meaninglessness of it all. the act itself was its own end, nothing good came of doing it right, but god forsake the day that the ritual was ignored or forgotten.
i was screwed from the beginning. my parents could have done anything to protect me from all things bad. my demons were attacking from within.
thankfully adulthood and intellectual rationality have shed a brilliant light upon these lonely parts of my psyche. i am happy to be fully functional and free of the silent suffering. but it does have to be a little bit funny. forever.