Tide, Breakfast for Dinner and Girls' Singing Voices

   This has nothing to do with what I'm going to write about, but I just want everyone to know that 60-something year old man sitting at the table next to me at Caribou just went to exchange his cookie because it didn't have enough chocolate in it. I can support that.

   I'm a lot to handle. A little saucy and too ridiculous. And who needs transition time? Not me. I can go from serious to silly in .2 nanoseconds. And even though I know that I'm a bit much, I've always considered myself pretty easy. I'm not a lot of work and pretty flexible. Yesterday, it dawned on me that that's not so true.
    So here's the deal. I'm sick. Like I had to go to the doctor and get antibiotics sick. That stinks. And you know what started the whole mess? Allergies. I'm allergic to the outside and to certain dogs and cats. And that means that people have to make room for that. But that's not that abnormal, so generally I don't worry too much about it. But in the midst of being sick this week and people having to make room for me, I had to do laundry (I know...tragic). And I share a laundry room with other folks and they have a big container of Tide detergent that everyone uses. Isn't that kind? It is. But guess what-I'm allergic to Tide. And on top of that, I hate peanut butter and tomato soup and peas and iced tea and coffee and breakfast for dinner. I think that most girls singing voices sound horrific. Going on a walk by myself sounds like a great idea and talking in the morning is horrible. You know what all of this amounts to? I'm high maintenance. Ahhhh...I hate that. 
    And I hide it. Even from myself, until Monday around 11:27am. I tried to sneak in my detergent and put it on a different shelf, because I don't want anyone to think that I'm a diva. And I don't tell people that peas are gross, I just don't eat them. And I avoid folks in the morning and sometimes I wait until no one is in the common room before I leave the house, just because I don't feel like saying anything (fyi...I really love the folks I live with and enjoy spending time with them). 
    Why do we hide our quirks? Because it's easier. But you know what I think? I think that we are all kind of high maintenance. And we should probably be a little more open about it. Because I don't care if you like knitting and Christian coffee shop music is your favorite. If you want to drink coffee every morning and eat bacon at night, that's cool. I'll drink tea and eat cereal with you. And you probably don't mind switching to Gain instead of Tide and growing up my mom didn't mind making me a turkey sandwich instead of PB&J. 
    The beautiful part about us all being so high maintenance is that when we made room for each other and know each other, the difficult parts aren't that difficult. They just are. And that's the pretty part about relationships.