Jack Wild, Knitting and Circling

I have become obsessed with knitting unable for my hands to be idle. Multicolored striped hats grow in piles on my bed, surrounded by dust and laundry. My needles can’t stop. Promises are made to my saner self, after I do dishes you can knit, after I pay bills, after I clean, but first I need to finish knitting one more row…
I have had many obsessions in my life. I was enamored with Jack Wild the Artful Dodger from the movie “Oliver” I had a large bulletin board covered with pictures from Tiger Beat. I went to the movie six times sitting through both showings. I read Charles Dickens. I could not sleep at night without playing the soundtrack. My rituals kept increasing. I had to touch each poster on the wall, each picture on the board in the correct order, turning in a complete circle, and stopping the record during the song Where is Love? My sister would throw pillows at me groaning when she heard the intro medley. I could not stop. I was compelled by the certainty of dire consequences, if I even omitted one step. It was taking over an hour to complete my tasks. One day, I read a letter in Ann Landers about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I was reassured to know there were others. I made myself stop, but these oddly comforting compulsions would reappear, morphing into new ceremonial cravings.
The Jack Wilds would evolve, to checking, every burner, lock, and baby’s breaths in a relentless cadence of fear, collecting Fisher Price toys, beanie babies, McDonald kid meal toys in a frenetic glassy-eyed haze. The necessity of running everyday, surpassed my fear of dark and storm. The irrational demon of repetition would imprison my brain in a skipping record of possible scenarios, as I waited for the ring of the phone, the car turning into the driveway, the cat on the step. The relentless conversations clamoring in an overheated brain of mistakes made, words said, not said.
It would be too many years before I betrayed my addictions with an antidote, ingesting small green tablets of chemical calm. They quiet the most ferocious of the echoing beasts, but the subtle acceptable ones gleefully take their place.