Find the Canary

1130pm, Tuesday night, sitting here with a cup of peppermint tea, listening to Billie Holiday croon about hardship and soul.
A year and a half ago, I started a book/novella called "The Chronicles of my Mental Decline." I may or may not post some of it on here, we'll see. Anywho, 422 days later, after approximately 4300 (give or take) pills, one ambulance ride, and two cop visits, I think the story is over. There's nothing left to write. The decline is done. I'm sane now.
Sure, I'm still a little crazy: I still go up the stairs in counts of eight, I still suffer from trichotillomania (big word, I know, look it up :p), and I still pick at my scabs compulsively in order to make as many scars as I can. But, and it's "a bigger but than the one I sit on" to quote Oscar Wilde, I'm different now. I'm not really sure how to explain it; I know who to be now, instead of just projecting reflections of everyone else.
My disorders don't bother me anymore. In fact, to be completely honest, I really enjoy my OCD. It allows me to do some things that other people can't (who else can organize an entire bookshelf according to genre and author alphabetically in less than 9 minutes?). And it makes me see things differently.
A couple of years ago, I had to write a short story for one of my classes. I knew I wanted to write about a break-up, but I was trying to think of a really good way to show and not tell the reality of this person being alone now. And then one day, I was sitting in the tub, looking around the room, and it struck me: toothbrushes. When you're a couple, you have two toothbrushes in a cup on the bathroom counter. When you're alone, there's only one. So in my story, after she wakes up with a wicked hangover, she walks into the bathroom to wash her face and she sees the lone toothbrush, and then it hits her: he's gone. My professor loved that detail. He gave me an A+ on the story too and chose it for the class workshop. All thanks to my OCD; had it not been for the fact that I compulsively and constantly look around for things to arrange and make sure everything is where it's supposed to be, I would never have noticed those toothbrushes. Stupid I know, but it works.
And I realize I'm rambling and going on way more than I wanted to. This was supposed to be a short post (again) about how I've started writing again, but I'm writing differently. Obviously, I'm still working on my novel, but I've started something else too. It's called "Find the Canary," and for the moment, I'm not telling anyone what it's about. But I think it'll be good.
And now I'm off to read about a couple of things that I will be posting about next time. Lovelovelove all xox