To Do or Not To Do

I am a recovering perfectionist. I used to keep a running TO DO list. I never let anything drop off of it. Every few months, the page of my Big Chief tablet would get full. (If you know what a Big Chief tablet is, I wager you’re over 40.) I would tear off the top page and rewrite my list on the next page. I would omit the items that I had completed and crossed off. But I never deleted any other items. I just carried every little thing that I ever thought of to do, forward with me month after month. I never deleted an incomplete item. It was like carrying around Santa Claus’s pack. Unlike Santa Claus whose load gets lighter with every house he visits, my list got longer with every month that passed.

No item was too old to continue nagging at me. This actually has a good side. It explains why I got my engineering license 21 years after I graduated from college and why I finished my son’s quilt 12 years after I started it. (See http://veronicajungehobson.blogspot.com/2009/02/stitch-in-time.html.) But the bad side is the weight of all those incomplete tasks dragged me down. No matter how many tasks I completed, if there were items still on the list, I felt like a failure.

I finally decided to reform. I threw away my To Do list. No more carrying around tasks that were years old. I made a fresh start. If I felt that I had to make a list, it was only for one week or one day. The next day, I started all over with blank paper, nothing carried over from the past.

I continue recovering. I still have trouble allowing myself time to do fun things, but I’m learning. Having my husband, Marty, as a companion to watch tv, go out to dinner or see movies with helps me take time to enjoy life. Sometimes I relapse and I start to feel guilty for not accomplishing more things. I complain to Marty. “Well, honey, just do what I always do,” he says brightly. I look toward my love with hope in my eyes until he says, “Just make yourself a list.”