Eggs (Check), Peanut Butter (Check), Colonoscopy . . .

Still blogging away alongside three other talented bloggers.  Each week, one of us chooses a topic and we all post a blog entry on that topic, usually on Thursdays.  (Usually we are on time.  Usually.  Ok, sometimes.)

Here are the links to the other fabulous blogs:

Merryland Girl

Froggie 

Moma Rock

This week, Froggie chose, and she asked us to write about to-do items that you keep putting off.

            Ugh, this one hit right in the heart.

            I?  Am a list maker.  I love making lists.  Shopping lists, to-do lists – I’ll write down just about anything.  However, I am not always so keen on actually using those lists.

            Yes, I am the queen of creating a shopping list – and then forgetting to bring it with me to the store.  Or, worse, I bring it and forget to look at it.  Or I look at it but still manage to forget something on said list.  If I rely on memory, I invariably remember two of the three items I needed, almost always forgetting the most urgent one. 

            I also lose lists.  So I then create another list – and, of course, it usually doesn’t exactly match the first.  This doesn’t stop me from making the second list, which I usually also lose (I cannot tell you how many times I’ve found them in my back pocket when I went to do laundry).  I’ve tried all sorts of solutions:  using the Notes app on my phone, using Post-It notes inside an organizer, using a pre-printed form designed solely for groceries and sundries.  The outcome never varies; I am successful for a while, and then it all falls apart.

            Of course, a lost list does not erase the items upon it, meaning that, with or without a paper trail, I always have a “list” of stuff that needs to be done.  Most items, I remember and many I get done.  But lately, the list seems to have grown crazy long and, correspondingly, my ambition to check off items has veered in the wrong direction.  I could blame the crazy instability of the past months; as most of you know, my life has been in a state of flux for the better part of a year:  moving to Tennessee, coming back, working a temp job, selling our house and moving again, buying a house, et cetera.  And all that change has for sure lengthened my list.  Suddenly, there are paint colors to choose and a driver’s license to change and change-of-address forms to fill out.  I’ve been pretty successful getting (most of) those done.  They’re tedious, yes, but they don’t take long, so I do them and check the box and move on.

            Which leaves the items I avoid doing. 

            We all have them, those things we have to do but just don’t want to.  I could list more than a few.  A haircut.  Finding a new doctor and seeing him or her.  Signing the middle child up for occupational therapy.  Some spillover legal work I picked up from a friend.  Writing my blog post (sometimes I feel that way.  Sometimes.).  Cleaning the house (always hate this one).  Taking the cats to the vet (two at a time, as we only have two carriers).  The length of my list got me wondering:  what about these tasks make me put them off?  Do they share anything in common?

            I came up with two theories.  First, almost everything I listed is, at its very root, mind-numbingly boring.  There is absolutely nothing exciting about finding doctors and setting up appointments and driving over to see them.  Taking the cats to the vet?  Besides boring, it is stressful, as they cannot stand being in the car – and I’m not a fan of the caterwauling or the scratching.  Cleaning the house is akin to a punishment:  I do it solely because it needs to be done and get zero pleasure out of the finished task.  I know that 88 percent of life is showing up and no one promised me a rose garden, but as I age and time seems somewhat more finite, I find that I loathe spending that time doing stuff that is anything less than at least mildly interesting.  And so the dusting remains undone. 

            Then, too, all of these tasks require a decent-sized chunk of my time – time I’d rather spend doing something else.  I’ve recently found that I no longer like commitments and simply don’t want to block off a few hours here or there any given day for any reason short of spending time with a good friend or two.  I’ve grown to cherish having a wide-open day, free to spend time however I choose.  It’s the “what if” state of mind:  what if I make plans to do something meh and then something really fun comes along?  Sadly, few of us have the luxury of completely open free time, me included.  And, at the end of the day, I do have to get a comb through my hair, and someone has to get the cats their rabies shots.  That someone is me.

            Given my age and my growing habit of setting myself in my ways, I’m doubtful that I’ll find the system for getting my to do list under control, and I’m more doubtful that I’ll change my mind about those tasks that make me want to scream.  I’ll do them (most of them) grudgingly and probably as last-minute as I can pull off.  In the meantime, I’ll deal with the long, tangly hair that actually gets caught in my coat zipper because I won’t call the stylist to schedule a trim, and I’ll write my blog entry the night before it’s meant to post.  And I’ll hope that, unlike me, you won’t put “read Denise’s blog” on your to-do list and then leave said list in the pocket of your jeans, to be discovered late Sunday night when you – like me – finally force yourself to do a week’s worth of laundry.