The List

Around 5:45 Friday afternoon, my phone rang at work. It was Grace and Greg's number. Of course, I picked it up. Fiona, it turns out, had been sad all day. So sad. Super sad. Whiny sad.

When asked what would make her feel better, turns out she said "Go Megan's, see Freya." Could they make that happen?

Of course they could. What else are pets for except the de-sadding of two year olds?

Though I have no real idea if it worked, since they were off to visit their Bobcia shortly after.

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There were many things yesterday that caused my simmering down: I made arrangements to buy three ceiling fans for $35, one of those very nice kettles for $25, off of kijiji mostly, thus saving me scads of cash; I had a great yoga class, where I was able to get past a couple of mental blocks I'd been having and into full lotus; it was especially great compared to the class on Thursday, during which I spent 20 minutes crying in the bathroom; the big cry in the bathroom on Thursday; certainly not least, the aforementioned Skype date.

The most important thing, though? More important to my general well being and mental health than all of those things put together?

I present to you, the list.*

Like many fellow neurotics/librarian-types, I'm a compulsive list maker. When I clean my desk off at work, clean out my day timer, empty the papers at the bottom of my bag, I find tons of lists. Most of them I'd forgotten I'd made, many of which no longer make any sense.

For this move, I had the lists of people who've volunteered their time, I had lists of what needed to be cleaned, I had lists of what needed to be double checked, what needed to be tripled checked, who needed to be reminded of what, and what I needed to buy to be prepared for the actual move.

All written on scraps of paper clipped on my desk at work, on my kitchen table at home, in my day timer, at the bottom of my bag.

And the tickertape was wearing me down.

Thursday, I stole about 7 feet of brown paper off the roll at work, tacked it up in my long long hallway, found all the lists I could find, and transcribed every thing from them onto the brown paper.

I promised myself that as soon as I thought of something, I would write it on the list. If I thought of it again, my mantra would be "ON THE LIST."

My brain caught on pretty quick. I had to use the mantra maybe 5 times before my brain just relaxed, and my shoulders with it.

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I can only guess that the Go Megan's visit worked.

It's the best thing on there.

*Some of those names might not be right. The list is not so much for veracity as for the quieting of minds.