I always pull on doors, for instance.  Many doors open in this manner.  Many doors, however, do not.  I'll stand in front of a door pulling and pulling and pulling even though the very fact that it's remaining closed  despite my yanking on it stands as evidence that I should push.  I refuse to push.  I refuse to push because doors should be opened by pulling, and that's just the way it should be.  I don't know why it should be so, I just know it should be so.  And so I pull on the push door.  I'm not stupid, I just don't believe in push doors.  They don't exist.

 

This, I'm told, is known as “magical thinking.”

 

I can never remember if I locked the door.  It happens every day, every time I leave the house; I walk away, stop short, think, “Shit, I locked the door, right?” and feel compelled, utterly compelled, to walk back and check the lock.  As if a force outside of me were driving me to do it.  I'm overcome with anxiety.  I'd better go check that door.  

 

Most of the time I force myself to keep walking and repeat, “Of course I locked the door, I always lock the door,” in a singsong voice inside my head, until that bright, chirpy sentiment totally subsumes the breathless, panicky one.

 

But I can't say I don't occasionally walk back and check the door.