Anxiety & Obsessions

So my anxiety level has been sky high lately.  All this school stress is coming to a peak.  Tests after tests, projects to work on, paperwork to complete, sign, pay for and date so I can have the privilege to pay even more money to take my state exam in the next 3 months.  Not to forget that I still need to have my cat vaccinated, get an exam myself, pay for a crown on a very old tooth, clean the house at some point and maintain my sanity, or at least at this point, what's left of it.  Oh yeah, and there's is something called a resume that I need to work on and begin the process of finding a job before they are all snatched up. Or so I am told.  

I went today to have another passport picture made for my state exam paperwork that needs to be notarized and mailed before I take my test.  I came to realize that this would be my fourth 'passport' photo made in the last 20 years or so.  The first one was for a real passport way back in high school for an overseas trip.  I had another one done about eight years ago when I renewed my passport  in expectations of going again overseas with the man I was seeing at the time.  However, that plan never came to be.  (asshole.)  As a part of the nursing program process, I had to have a current passport photo along with craploads of paperwork.  That was two years ago.  Now I am in the final stretch of the game and I need yet again, a current passport photo for state license purposes.  Whatever.  

But on that obsessive note, as I was waiting to be fingerprinted, (yes for testing purposes), I was thinking of all the times I've had my photo taken for such occasions.  Being that you typically get two copies of your photo and being the packrat that I am, I know that I have all of my other copies of my passport photos.  Which struck in me the need to find all of my former photos and make a timeline of how I have changed or not changed in the last 20 years or so.  I know for a fact that I have all of those stupid 2 x 2 pictures of my head.  I know that I have placed them in groups of other pictures in various places.  I just can't find them!  And the obsessive part of me spent a good 45 minutes, if not an hour,  upon returning home frantically  looking at all the hot spots that would potentially contain my previous head shots.  As if it were a true priority!  However, I just could not let it go.  I had to find them!  I typically keep that sort of stuff in one central area, however I have clearly tossed those stupid little head shots somewhere else for projects that remain unfinished.  I finally realized that I was not going to find them today and the very last thing I needed to do was spend the rest of my evening tearing my house apart in attempt of locating such tomfoolery.  Clearly I was allowing my school induced anxiety to be channeled in a completely unnecessary direction.  So I stopped.  

My motivation behind in finding those stupid photos was primarily making a timeline of myself to a degree and observing the stages of my life that seemed important at that time.  I guess I was wanting to see how my life has changed over the years and look to see how much I have changed and grown as a person.  Not so much as to how much I have aged or anything, but to take a real look at myself and see what I have accomplished thus far compared to what my expectations were at the time all those other photos were taken.  That was, and still is, the primary motivator behind this side-tracked obsession, along with not wanting to deal with school stuff.   I know I will find the other pictures someday soon.  Just not today.  I have resigned to the fact that I am not focused enough for school crap tonight.  I think it's just gonna be an evening on the couch and early to bed so I can function at clinical tomorrow.  However, there is one cabinet I have yet to inspect.  Dare I?  Hmmm......  elizinashe