Obsessed

As anyone who's seen my closet can attest, I am more than a bit compulsive. My entire master bedroom closet is arranged via the ROYGBV color scheme. My clothes are all facing the same way. I can find any piece of clothing I need within three seconds.

While you may find that to be textbook OCD behavior, I argue that I'm just hyper organized. It is difficult, however, to excuse my behavior as merely pragmatic when I find myself freaking out if an errant sweater somehow gets hung in the wrong place. The nervous tic begins, and I have to straighten everything before I can move on to another task.

I'm not quite sure how I choose what to obsess over and what to merely allow. I wish, for example, I were more serious about my savings account. I should be more concerned with balancing my checkbook, but I seldom worry over it until just before payday, when I have to make sure it actually has a positive balance.

So it's not always the things that are good for me that become fixations. But lately, I have succumbed to an obsession I never thought I'd experience: I have become an exercise fanatic.

It started innocently enough. My vanity and need to fit into skinny jeans begat treadmill time. My cousin Lonnie's mocking and saying I'd never be able to run a 5K led to my pushing past my shin splints and training for a race. But it was never fun. I never liked it; I just found it to be a necessary evil.

And while I don't claim to have experienced a runner's high or spend the day looking forward to working out, I have become obsessed with the results. I woke up at 4:30 a.m. today and, instead of going back to bed like a normal person, got up and went to the gym to spend an hour on the elliptical machine. Then I went for a run tonight after work.

When I skip a day, I find myself feeling guilty. I want to be burning calories at all times. I mentally plan running routes in the shower. I find myself doing crunches while watching TV. I do yoga in the middle of the day at my office.

In other words, I've officially gone crazy. Somebody pass me a piece of cheesecake and tell me to chill.