overthinking – Jamie DeBree

Hi! I’m Jamie, and I’m an “overthinker”.

It sounds like it should be some rare, mysterious ailment, doesn’t it? It’s not, of course…just ask any anxious or control-freak person out there, and they’ll tell you. Why do we tend to overthink things? I can’t answer for anyone else, but in my case it’s simply fear. Not really fear that the worst might happen (because trust me, I have a plan of some sort for that), but more than one of the myriad smaller things that require more time and effort (and money, sometimes) to resolve will spin out of control.

This actually serves me well at work, where testing and retesting and thinking and thinking again makes all the tech I deal with run better and I end up with less technical “misses” that result in panic-type situations (it happens, and it always will on occasion, but it’s the exception rather than the norm).

Not so much at home, where the top two things noodling around in my head are getting the van ready for our first overnight trip next week, and what to do with the dogs while we’re gone. The van is already way, way over-provisioned for the one-night trip we have planned, and my parents will be coming over to watch the dogs for us, but the details are spinning about the dogs and the fact that I’m very much a night person (it’s nearly midnight as I write this), and my dogs are used to that schedule, but my Mom is not.

I also get up to feed the dogs around 6:30am every morning (I go back to bed on the weekends), which is not something my Dad, who is a night person, would appreciate having to do. My dilemma is whether to have the morning person stay over and possibly have to let Athena out at 1am (when I’m normally headed to bed), or have the night person stay over to make sure they get their late-night snack and another potty break, but also have to get up at 6:30am the next morning to give the dogs breakfast too?

Or should I ask my dad to cover the late-night snack/potty break, not have either of the parents sleep over, and have my mom cover the breakfast shift.

I’ve been going round and round about this in my head, and still haven’t come to a decision, because the consequences of getting it wrong could be nothing, or they could be torn up couch cushions & doors, to say the least.

The truth is, both schedules will probably work just fine, and I just need to accept that I can’t control everything and I am really looking forward to getting out for another drive, some more bookstore shopping (and a museum!), Pokemon in different places, and our first night spent in the van. Oddly enough, the one thing I don’t overthink (and probably should) is travel (though as I mentioned, the van is over-provisioned just because we both like our creature-comforts).

Are you an overthinker? Is it situational, or general? What do you do to talk yourself out of or around it (if anything)?

We are leaving Thursday and back Friday, so there probably won’t be a post next week, but after that, I think it will be time to settle into a more set routine. And I’ve figured out my blockage with my Magpie heroine (who is not an overthinker, to her detriment), so that is moving onward again too!

Until next time,

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Jamie DeBree

Writer | DBA | Dog Wrangler

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