Slightly disconcerted this evening...

The dishwasher is making odd noises. It sounds... well, it sounds wet.

Now, I know it's supposed to sound that way, but you know the difference between the right sort of wetness and the too wet sound... I'm hoping it's just that the dishwasher isn't as full as I usually have it when I put it on. I will ignore it and hope my floor isn't flooded later. That is the simple thing to do, if not the most practical I suppose. The trouble is, despite being old and decrepit I have an overactive imagination. If I hear a bump in the night I worry it's some bugger sneaking into the house and I just have to get up and make sure. One night I was so positive I'd heard the back door open I went to the kitchen and picked up a knife before wandering around the house, checking all the kids' rooms and even the cupboard under the stairs... if someone had broken in they would have freaked! I hope it would have been at the knife, not the sight of me in my dressing gown.

But back to my imagination. I imagine the worst so often that sometimes I make myself ignore things that are going on. Like the alarm that was sounding just a few minutes ago. I could hear it through the baby monitor and figured it was just a car alarm going off in the street. I knew it wasn't my car, 'cause ours is a blaring horn not a wailing siren so I ignored it. Next thing I know, Catherine comes downstairs and tells me there's flashing lights in the street outside. A fire truck had turned up. Bit dumb of me to ignore the alarm in retrospect. What if it had been a fire in Naomi's room? And there I go, imagining the worst again. As it turned out, they had a look around and left - false alarm somewhere.

My imagination keeps me awake at night. I'm such a control freak, I'll think about conversations I think I might have the next day or the next week and play them and replay them in my mind until I know exactly what I'm going to say. The problem with that is the person I'm talking with doesn't know what they're supposed to say so the conversation (if it even eventuates) never turns out the way I expected and it's usually not as bad as I think it will be. I don't do this for all conversations, by the way, only the ones I think are going to be stressful or difficult in some way. I've no idea why I do it. In my rational moments I know it's a tremendous waste of energy and entirely pointless, but I can't stop my mind from going around in circles anyway. Maybe it's a result of a stressful childhood. I did it as a teenager too and it sort of hangs around even now, when I'm adult enough to cope with difficult situations.

The ironic thing is though, when I'm in a stressful situation that I haven't had time to prepare for, I can cope really well. I can say what needs to be said with a reasonable amount of firmness, conviction or authority but hopefully still be yielding, to a point anyway. I'm one of those people that copes well with stress at the time then falls apart later. I guess that's a good thing. The dishwasher still sounds too wet though....