High Strung

I made an off-handed comment this week that really got me thinking.  In a text to the absolutely wonderful guy I recently started dating, I told him I was getting a massage after school because my back was so knotted up, and that it was a pretty common thing for me because I'm a little high-strung and tend to carry all my stress in my shoulders and back.  The sweet message I got back was something along the lines of, "How are you high-strung?  I haven't seen that.  I want you to feel like you can be yourself."  I was teasing him about that this afternoon---wasn't he really saying, "Oh, holy crap, what does 'high-strung' mean?  When is the other shoe gonna drop?"  We both knew that he didn't mean that (well, maybe a little bit...), but it did make me consider what I really meant. 


I've always been a little high-strung to my family.  From my earliest memories, my family called me a worry-wart and often compared me to my paternal grandmother, who was intensely high-strung and nervous.  The similarities were close enough that I took note of her personality when I was pretty young and decided that SHE made ME nervous by being so nervous.   My maternal grandparents made me much easier in my mind; they were eminently practical people who dealt with the real problems of the world without getting all hyped up about it.  I try to emulate that as much as I can now.  But still....yes, I am a little high strung.


I hate loud noise, especially unexpected loud noises; they are physically painful to me and can make me want to bite something, like a startled dog would do.


I can't stand littering or trashy behavior, like kids drawing on desks at school.  It feels like a bomb goes off in my head when I catch a kid using any kind of writing utensil on my desks.  Most years, I never had much problem with it after the kids saw me go off over it once or twice early in the year.  This year's class of juniors, though, doesn't seem to care what I think.  It's been so bad that I have had to start making each class clean their desks every Friday before their tests because so many write their spelling words on the desktop in very, very light pencil.  It's absolutely infuriating.  And littering from cars---pshhh!  If I ever make a citizen's arrest, it'll be for some idiot throwing a McDonald's bag out on the road. 


I get caught up in my oldest-child syndrome a lot and put incredible pressure on myself to either do something perfectly or put on my poker face and convince the rest of the world that I really don't care about how a thing comes out.  Both ways of approaching life take a tremendous amount of energy and spirit to craft the image I want to send out.  It makes for a very private sort of personality----and a tense, high strung sort of character. 


There are some standards that I just can't let go of, whether at work or my personal life.  If I volunteer to work on a committee, for example, my conscience won't let me shirk, no matter how busy life gets.  If a student asks for an opportunity to get bonus points, I won't give that kid a chance that I don't give to every other student.  If I make a mistake, I just can't rest until I do something to try to make it right, even if it's only apologizing.  I'll still lose sleep over it, too, though not as badly as I would have without apologizing.  But for my personal convictions to make me a little high-strung surely isn't that bad.


The best example of how tense I can be is the fact that I can't just go home at night, no matter the hour, and go right to bed.  I am much too tightly-wound for that.  I have to sit at the computer or read or watch television for an hour or two to chill out, to let the wind-up toy in my head wear out and let me settle peacefully.


It's not like being high-maintenance:  I'm a lazy shopper, a sloppy housekeeper, a casual girl who rarely wears anything dressy.  I don't get particularly excited about hair and makeup, nor do I even try to stay fashionable.  But watch out, world; if you try to squeeze me into any of those roles, the high-strung, tightly-wound Ms. Welker in me might snap and give you a piece of her mind---or a little nip on your hand.