I'm slowly becoming more OCD

I've been accused of being anal retentive and a perfectionist before in my lifetime, but I don't think that I actually believed it until I began applying to graduate schools. I was just writing the addresses on manila envelopes for a few of these when, suddenly! oh, no! the Q on Queen Mary's looks a little weird! and how could I not have read the address properly and written Queen Mary first when the first line clearly says "The Admission and Recruitment Office". Maybe I should start over. And then, the fear sets in. Should I start over? Is it okay? Who's really going to care? All these questions start running through my head and my hand clenches up on the pen as my heart clenches in my chest.

So on the second one I write quickly, trying not to care that the s at the end of Admissions looks a little messy. Reveling in the fact that it looks kinda cool when I write fast, as though I'm so busy and confident that I can't be bothered to make it look perfectly neat.

And that's just the envelope. Imagine what happens when I have to hand write the application itself, the thing the admissions people will actually be reading and judging me on. Suffice it to say, I used that adhesive correction tape and cut it off so that the edges were nice and neat and covered my mistakes perfectly.

I think all this anal retentive behavior stems from my fears that I won't measure up, that my grades, references and CVs will not be good enough to get me into a graduate school that I want to attend. After doing the best I can on my applications and in my classes and trying to improve my resume, the only other thing I can actually control is the way it looks. And looks count for something, right?? Right? I mean, an admissions officer might see my neatly written envelope and application and think, hmm, she's so neat she obviously is ready for the high intensity of grad school!! She put so much thought into each and every answer.

That must be why i'm freaking out about things as banal as how my handwriting looks on the envelope of my applications, rather than the actual content off my work.