Out of Control

It’s 6:46 and thirty-one seconds when the doorbell rings.  My mom runs to answer it.

“Hi, Michelle!” I hear my mom call.  It’s my sister.  She left her college friends to have dinner with us tonight.

I have four minutes before I can go out and greet her.  I can only walk through doors when the number of minutes is divisible by five.  6:46 and fifty-nine seconds.  Not happening.

It’s the killer of what could be an okay life.  I’m late for class all the time when I’m at school.  A teacher will let me out at 1:50 exactly.  I walk through the hallways in a straight line, starting with my right foot, ending with my left.  I reach the door, but it’s too late: 1:56.  I lurk outside for four minutes before I can walk in.  Late again.

Or I’ll have a doctor’s appointment.  Do you have any idea of how many doors there are in a doctor’s office?  It takes me twenty minutes just to get into the examination room.

The other things that bother me are much less obvious.  It’s the door thing that kills me.  My mother can’t stand it.  I hate that she hates it.  It makes me feel so lousy.

“Rebecca?” my mom calls.  “Michelle’s here!  Why don’t you come out?”

I check my digital watch.  No way am I leaving at 6:47 and fifty-one seconds.

I’m bored.  I hate waiting.  Another reason why I hate my door issue.  Standing in front of doorways is just so dull.

I can’t play music.  I can only listen to tracks five and ten, and I can only keep ten CDs in my CD rack at a time (that’s all it holds).  I can’t keep them anywhere else besides my CD rack because I just can’t.  But the point is that I’m sick of tracks five and ten on my ten CDs.  That’s only twenty songs.  For the past who knows how many years.   It gets boring.

I can’t do my homework.  I work on my homework in half hour blocks.  I start at a certain time and work until half an hour.  But we’ll probably have dinner at seven, and it’s already 6:48 and twenty-five seconds.

I have to go to the bathroom.  I check my watch again.  6:48 and thirty-two seconds.  I’ve got a minute and a half before I can go.  I carefully sit down on the foot of my bed, right in the middle.  I put my right hand down without thinking and leave it there for three seconds.  I jerk it up once I realize what I’m doing.  Down with my left hand for three seconds.  It still feels uneven, so I hold both hands down for three seconds.

I don’t like the number three.  I like twos, fours, fives, and zeros.  I hold my right hand down for another three seconds, then my left hand, and then both hands again.  Six seconds for each hand separately, six for them together.  Six is an even number.  Good enough.

6:49 and eleven seconds.  I should get in position.  I stand up, being careful not to lean on my hands.  I walk over to the door to my bathroom, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot.  I stand in front of it and look at my watch again.  6:49 and twenty-eight seconds.  Half a minute of waiting time.  Boring.  I’ve had enough waiting outside of doors to last the entire world about two million years.

“Rebecca, come out and say hello!” my mom orders.  She doesn’t understand my door thing.  She thinks I do it because I want to.  I can’t explain why I have to.  Going through the door at a random time seems unthinkable to me.  It’s the same as starting to walk on my left foot.  I just can’t do it.  Actually, that doesn’t make much sense either.

It’s like...you aren’t suicidal, so you wouldn’t jump out of a third story window.  Well, why not try it?  What’s the worst that can happen?

Exactly.  You’d die.

I’m not saying I’ll die if I walk through the door at a random time, but it’s just something I wouldn’t do.  Like you wouldn’t jump out that window.  Sure, you can envision it happening and everything working out okay, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to take the risk.  I’m not going to take the risk.

“I have to go to the bathroom!” I shout.  I glance at my watch again.  6:49 and forty-three seconds.  Almost time.

I begin my countdown.  Fifteen more seconds, fourteen more seconds...You think I’m a total loser, don’t you?  Nine more seconds...eight, seven, six...I’ve told my mom plenty of times: I’m sorry I’m weird.  Three, two, one, go!

Right foot through the door, left foot through the door.  That in one second.  I check my watch.  Yup, only 6:50 and one second.  Now two seconds.

I shut the door and take care of my business and wash my hands.  Now I need to wait until 6:55 before I can leave again.  Going to the bathroom is by far the worst.  In your bedroom, there’s stuff you can do.  But in the bathroom, forget it.  I wash my hands again.  I wash my hands all the time.  It’s weird, but I just do.  They just feel like they need to be washed.

When I’m stuck in the bathroom, I wash them for a long time.  Plenty of soap and water and all that good stuff.

6:53 and thirty-seven seconds.  Enough time to put on lotion?  Not quite.  I could probably do it, but I’d be taking that risk of missing 6:55.  I can’t put on lotion anywhere but the bathroom.

You probably think I don’t have any friends.  I’m too weird for friends, in an annoying way.  Who wants to go out to lunch with me if they have to wait for me to go through four doors (out of school, into a restaurant, out of a restaurant, back into school)?  That could knock off almost twenty minutes of their lunch period.

Not to mention me freaking out that I forgot something.  I do that all the time.  I’ll be pretty sure that I haven’t forgotten it, but I can’t convince myself that I really, truly haven’t forgotten it.  And it’s not material stuff like notebooks or pens.  It’s stuff like locking my locker or turning off the water in my sinks and stuff.  No one wants to hear about someone whining about crap like that.

I do have friends, though.  They’re mostly my friends from elementary school, the few of them that managed to stay in the same school as me all through middle and high school.  I’m not their best friend, but if I have a bit of company, I can deal.  I can’t really ask for more.

6:54 and forty-nine seconds.  Yikes.  I’d better get in position.

I stand right in front of the door and start my countdown.  Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, go!  Right foot, left foot, I’m through.

I sit back down on my bed, in the middle of the edge, if that makes any sense.  I don’t lean on my hands this time.  I rarely make that kind of mistake.

“Dinner!” my mom calls.  She’s probably only calling for my benefit.  She and my dad are probably talking to Michelle in the kitchen or something

“Coming!” I shout.  I look at my watch.  6:57 and eighteen seconds.  Great.  Almost three whole minutes.  It doesn’t sound like a lot, but my mom can get pretty impatient.  I can too, but I can deal with it better than she can.  I’ve probably had a lot more practice.

I am a miserable person.  I’m not trying to be depressing or anything.  I’m just stating the truth.  I am miserable.

I can’t be happy at school.  Everything at school bothers me.  You know how teachers erase the board really quickly sometimes and they forget to erase that one little chalk line?  It drives me nuts.  I’m itching to go up and fix it, but I know that I can’t.  If I have to look at it for a long time, sometimes I start to cry.  It’s just so horrible to see it there, glaring at you!  It means that the teacher hasn’t rubbed the eraser all over the board, and I just can’t stand knowing that.

I’m such a freak.  I know that too.

And then my locker.  I can’t stand my combination lock.  There are only three numbers on it that matter, and that’s really not even.  And you turn it around a couple of half/quarter turns or something.  I spin it around about twenty times after I’ve put in the combination, but I still feel like I’m missing something even then.  It’s pathetic.  And every lock I see has to have the zero on the top.  If the zero isn’t on the top, I put it there.  I get so many weird looks from people who have seen me fooling around with their locks.

And then there’s the actual school work.  I write the same heading all the time, on everything.  My name, Rebecca Larson, upper left corner.  It needs to take up exactly 1 11/16 inches.  Yes, I carry a ruler with me.  Yes, I know that makes me seem like a math nerd.  No, I do not care.  I’d rather seem like a math nerd than have my name look different on different pieces of paper.

Next comes the subject, lower left corner.  I don’t measure how long that is.  Upper right corner is the date.  I write out the whole month, then the day, and then the year.  Like September 9, 2006 is when we started school.  June 13, 2006 is when we end school.  I wish it was June.

And then the assignment in the lower right corner.  This is weird.  I hate putting down my assignments.  I’ll say “notes, textbook pages 412-418” or “reading pages 192-194 + questions.”  Don’t bother to tell me that I am strange.  I know that.  Don’t bother to tell me that I don’t seem happy at school.  I know that too.

I also know that I can’t be happy at home.  When I’m alone, like I am now, it’s okay, but whenever I’m doing something weird (which is all the time) in the same room as my mom (which is a lot of the time), I get her disapproving looks.  Her sadness that I can’t just walk through doorways like a normal person.

She gets so embarrassed whenever she takes me out somewhere.  Like to doctor's appointments.  Oh, those are bad.  They are bad.  And I’m embarrassed too.  But the worst part by far is my mom’s disappointment in me.  I just feel so knotted up inside.  If she’s really upset with me, then I start to feel sick.  I get stomach aches all the time.

“Rebecca!” my mom yells.  Oh god.  The time.  Did I miss 6:55?

I check my watch.  6:54 and fifty-five seconds.  Oh man.  I just came so close.  I get up carefully and evenly and walk to the door, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot.  I glance at my watch.  One second, go!  Right foot left foot, I’m through.

Down the hallway, right, left, right, left.  I reach the dining room.  There’s no door to our dining room, which is good.  It just opens out into the hallway.  I can walk into it whenever I want to, at any random time.  I turn.  Right, left.  I walk straight.  Right, left, right, left, right, left, I’m in my seat.  I pull it back with both hands.  I sit down.  I rub my hands along the edges of the seat.  I do this every time I sit in a chair.

“Hey,” says Michelle, coming in.  “I haven’t seen you in awhile.”

“Sorry, I had to go to the bathroom,” I say, partly lying, but not really.  I’ve given up explaining my issues to people.  They just think I’m nuts.

You must think I’m nuts.

My mom comes in and starts serving out the pasta.  My dad comes in afterward, carrying a bottle of beer and a glass.  The rest of us already have drinks.

“So Michelle, how’re you liking chemistry?” my dad asks.

“The labs are so long,” says my sister, “they’re from, like, ten to four and we can’t eat lunch at all.  But the actual material is pretty interesting.”

“Hm,” says my dad, helping himself to green beans.  My mom takes a sip of water and eats some pasta.  I’m about to take a bite when I feel the familiar swooping sensation in my stomach.  I forgot something.  Again.

“I think I left my bathroom water on,” I say.  “I need to go turn it off.”

My mom rolls her eyes.  I sense the disappointment.  But I can’t stand leaving the sink on.  It’s weird.  I really can’t remember if it’s on or not.  It’ll take me forever to go, but it’s fine.  I want to wash my hands again anyway.

I get up from the table and walk to the doorway of my room.  I glance at my watch.  7:09 and thirty-five seconds.  They can totally see me from the dining room.  I’ll have to pretend I’m interested in their conversation.

“I like chemistry,” I say randomly.  I hate chemistry.  It’s so hard to do labs evenly.

“That’s nice,” says my dad, giving me as strange look before turning back to Michelle.  “So what was your European history teacher telling you?”

I glance at my watch.  7:09 and forty-six seconds.

“Rebecca, if you’re going to go, just go,” says my mom.  I cringe mentally away from her unhappiness with me.

I should walk through the door.  What could possibly happen?  I’m not going to die or anything.

But logic won’t save me in this situation.  Anyway, ten more seconds to go.  I look at my watch again.  Seven seconds...six, five, four, three, two, one, go!  Right, left, I’m through.

I hate my life.

I walk to the bathroom and look inside.  The water is off.  I won’t go in to wash my hands, even though I really want to.  I won’t make my mom have to wait longer for me.

I pace around my room, right, left, right, left, right, left, turn around, right, left, right, left, right, left, turn around, repeat.  I check my watch.  7:12 and nine seconds.

I need to stop this.  It’s making me so unhappy.  It makes my mom so unhappy.  And it will all get better once I stop myself.

I stop walking.  I try to convince myself to lift up my left foot before my right.  I can’t make myself do it.

Okay, maybe that’s starting too big.  I take a step with my right foot.  I keep my left foot in place.  I’m not going to move it.  I’m not going to move.  I won’t move it.

This is agony.  I feel off balanced, and it drives me crazy.  I need to move.  I’m getting tenser and tenser.  I have to even things out.  I have to.  But I won’t let myself.

“Stay strong,” I mutter.  Talking to yourself can be effective, but it’s not this time.  My brain is screaming with effort and anger.  Lift up the foot!  Step with your left foot!

I can’t!  It’s like my conscious.  I need to stay still.  I need to stay still.  I will not move.

My face is screwing up.  My eyes are getting wet.  A tear forms and drops onto my cheek.  That does it.  I step with my left foot.

I feel awful.  I’m sick of myself.  I almost had it.  If I had held through the crying, the shaking, the sickening, I would have been able to do it.  If I had stayed in that position until it just didn’t matter anymore, I wouldn’t have my stupid habits.

But I’m starting to realize that that’s the longest I’ve held myself in an unbalanced position.  I’ve gotten better.

“Rebecca?” my mom calls.  I glance at my watch.  7:14 and twenty-four seconds.  I station myself by the door.

If I keep on practicing, maybe some day I’ll be able to do it.  Maybe some day I’ll be able to step with my right foot and not my left.  Maybe I’ll be able to start walking with my left foot.  I won’t need to measure my name on my homework and I can listen to all of my music.  I won’t even care if a teacher erases the board properly or not.

But the best thing would be if my mom wasn’t fed up with me all the time.  And I could walk through doors whenever I want to.

Well, practice makes perfect.  I’ll just have to keep practicing.

I walk through the doorway at 7:15 on the dot.