Lists

Lists. I love lists. Somehow I feel so much better about the world in general if I have a to do list or a grocery list or a list for sanity. I am not making that up-- I actually have a list for sanity. Ways and reasons and things I can do to keep myself sane.

Today I lost my notebook containing all my lists and notes and things. Information that not even DaVinci could decode. Only my twisted brain would know what “Sunday theater pants coffee spill kitten nachos” means. Likewise my lists-- totally indecipherable to everyone but me. There are items on there like “dog happiness” and “kid bubble” which could probable mean anything, and items listed simply as “computer” which only I would know means that I need to take my old dead computer to be e-cycled and it’s in my trunk waiting for that errand to occur.

So having this information fall into the wrong hands would not be fatal-- someone might laugh but otherwise it’s harmless and unimportant to everyone but me. And to me, it is lifeblood. It is oxygen. It is absolutely necessary to my survival. When I realized it was missing I tried not to panic, but I checked in one of the two places I knew it wasn’t before freaking out. I mean, I knew exactly where it was-- in a shopping cart at Safeway where I’d left it after unloading my groceries. Probably getting wet and rain sodden, the precious lists running together in a river of blue ink and my soul’s despair. I nearly screamed aloud.

And yet-- hope. A simple solution. I called the Safeway lost and found and viola-- it was there. Some kind savior, some good Samaritan, some hero among humans saved my sanity and turned it in. I was saved. It was a miracle.

And now I feel like a complete headcase. Who goes to pieces over a notebook? My husband offered very kindly to help me recreate my lists, to remember the items and rewrite it all. But it cannot be done. It’s too much-- I forget things the moment they fall into my brain. Which is why I write them all down. Losing my notebook is like losing my mind. It cannot be recovered with a simple reboot. It can’t be rewritten. It makes me want to put my precious notebook under lock and key and never let anyone near it.