The Girl with the Curl

There Was a Little Girl

    There was a little girl,

    Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

    When she was good,

    She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I used to hear this a lot as a child, and also this one:

Mary Mary, quite contrary

how does your garden grow?

It was the quite contrary part my mother or father was referring to, of course.

Someone called me a drama queen.  I was always accused of exaggerating, and I probably did.  And do.  But I also think I feel and experience things more deeply than other people do.  I wear my heart on my sleeve, but also my laughter, my pain, my tears, my anger, and everything else.

I am "oversensitive."  But you can't just tell someone who is oversensitive to "get over it," and expect them to suddenly be normal.  I can't switch it on and off.  It seems to be hardwired into who I am.

The reason I am writing this is because I read somewhere that bright lights help you reset your biological clock  AND my doctor Muna Beeai suggested that I get a "blue light" for depression and insomnia.  I haven't done so yet.  But what I've been doing is going outside and sitting in the sun for 20 minutes when I first get up--I do my exercises, meditate, draw, paint, read, whatever.  But this morning, my quiet neighborhood is suddenly transformed into Busytown!!!  I sat in the backyard which is usually really quiet and peaceful--and cherish, truly cherish, peace and quiet--and there was ll this banging, crashing, sawing, hammering, loud radios, cell phones, yelling vices.  A team of carpenters is putting a new roof on the neighbor's house.  So I went out front.  There was a crew of people working on the road and another wheeling wheelbarrows full of dirt to another neighbor's yard.  Construction come home!

I am very sensitive to load noises; they really disturb me.  The vacuum cleaner sends me into paroxysms of panic, and has since I was very young.  It's worse if soemone else is doing it--I can deal with it better if I am doing it.

BUT. not much better, which is an issue for me.  I tried to sit it out and ignore it, but I was getting tenser and tenser.  Soon my shoulders were up around my ears and starting to HURT.  I had to give it up and go inside.  I can still hear the pounding and sawing in here, but not so intensely.

So, I am contrary, oversensitive, easily disturbed.  Sometimes horrid.  And loving, cheery, intelligent and creative.  AK!