Trying Something New, Again

How to: make a list

1. Think back to when you watched Brooklyn Nine-Nine and had to decide between if you wanted to be an Amy (put together, writes things down to remember) or a Rosa (put together, too cool to write things down). Realize that you’re a Jake (complete mess trying to be a Rosa, and failing, trying to be an Amy, and hating it.)

2. Gather new responsibilities all day and let them pile up because you forgot while you were watching television. It’s a coping mechanism for anxiety and it WORKS. I swear.

3. Stack up a pile of things to do so high you have to start another. And another. And just to be safe, one more.

4. Trip over a pile and go, “man. I forgot to do that today. Okay, I will tomorrow.”

5. Forget again. Not enough times to count as failure. But by now you’ve become next-door neighbors with failure. You know what the path looks like.

6. Think back to your journal at home designed specifically for lists. You left it there because you already have a daily journal, a paper journal, a diary journal, and many other school notebooks at college. You never used it anyways, but now you don’t have it, you swear that you would actually use it.

7. Collect all your to-do’s in a basket and write it down somewhere. Not a square notebook; that’s not list-shaped. Maybe the back of a used envelope. Write everything down in no particular order.

8. Stare at your list. Give it a nice good stare down. Intimidate it. Feel bad that there’s only a certain number of things and add some more. You know that you will be overwhelmed by the list of things and feel terrible about not completing it all. Feel embarrassed that there are too many things.¹

9. Make another list. Another list. Make a daily list. A groceries list. A chores breakdown list. Organize your life into lists. Whisper between the lines, “this will fix me.”²

10. Check some things off your list. Tell yourself good job. Tell other people to tell you good job. Do not think back to third grade and the color card system and golden stars and how you will never escape the golden star rule. Make your own card and draw the biggest golden star known to mankind.

1. This works best when you’re alone in your room while the whole house is asleep.

2. Do your best to not complete everything on the list. This is especially important.

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Last watched: Eternals (Disney Plus)

Last read: Memory Wall by Anthony Doerr

Books read: 2/12