Check please!

I love lists. There is something about making a list that makes everything feel a little more controlled which makes me feel a little less anxious. I have studied many different psychological disorders and theories, so I know all about how this statement makes me sound and I am a-okay with it. I hate change and I hate chaos. I love order and control, which is odd for an artist, but I relish my status as an enigma. My mother made lists all the time while I was growing up and still does. Making a list is great…organizing thoughts and seeing what all needs to be accomplished. Even better? Checking off items on said lists! I will actually add things to my lists that I have already done, just to be able to check something else off! The sense of accomplishment is priceless! Any feeling of order in this crazy world is so scarce, that I will take it anywhere I can get it. List-making is a way of figuring out what you want and getting it….


I grew up with list-makers. They may not all know it, but it was unavoidable in the environment in which we were raised. At a certain point we began to formulate our lists, most likely without even recognizing it…or for some, their lists were formulated for them; we were to graduate high school, go to college immediately, graduate, get a job, find a significant other, get a better job, get married, get a house, have kids…I have watched many follow this path, as if they are checking things off one by one. I have beat myself up many times over the fact that I have not followed the same list and checked off the same items, one by one. That’s what I was ‘supposed’ to do! There’s just a couple of problems with all of this list-mania…I don’t want a husband right now. And I am not ready for kids. And I don’t like the idea of caring for an entire house. And I am still in school because I have FINALLY figured out what I want to do with my life. Not one thing has been checked off of the life list I made when I was in the middle of high scool, busy being a know-it-all, other than graduating high school and going to college. But would I really want a life I didn’t desire, simply to be able to say that I had followed a check-list that supposedly led to contentment and happiness? Everyone has heard it before, but we all seem to forget it: there is no ‘normal’. There is no magic, universal equation that leads to success in life.

I just came off a really rough week…emotions running amok, school taking a necessary but unfortunate backseat, and various other factors adding to an interesting hormonal tornado. Sunday evening I broke out the trusty ol’ journal…and of course I made a list. I called it the ’26 List’. It contains various achievements I would like to accomplish before my next birthday. I ended up with a pretty long list. Now I am not one to set myself up for disaster or disappointment, so I have decided that I must accomplish only one of the many items on this list by December 25, 2011 and simply strive for crossing off as many as I can, after that first one. A list like this could take a long while to work through, and I was prepared for that.

The next morning, via a message in my in-box, I was able to check off one of the goals on my list. Just like that. God is good.