The Listmaker

I make a list for everything.

I write my shopping in a list - not just my grocery shopping, my future shopping too.

I write birthdays in a list.

I write, on average, two to three to-do lists a day: a work to-do list, a home to-do list, and a to-do list I call the "life" to-do list.

I feel like it makes me organised. I feel so powerful and successful and confident whenever I can cross something off the list.  Striking out something you have achieved is a unique kind of uplifting bliss only the truly obsessive compulsive could ever truly understand.

But the shame - the horror - the failure and the defeat to close a day with a to-do list glaring at you with outstanding entries.

The paranoia - the defeat, the descent into hollowness and antipathy.

The spiralling out of control as the list grows then again the next day - more to do - more still un-done - hovering, waiting, scorning.

The list giveth and the list taketh away, at the start and close of each and every day.