To do list!!! Ignore how silly, irresponsible even, you feel about including this part. Adding "To do list", complete with a grammatically incorrect number of exclamation points with little hearts in place of the dots. Reserving it top billing, the extra big lined space at the top of a little baby sticky note where it's just gonna take up pretty pink space, space you could be saving for one of the myriad of things you need to get accomplished tonight. Like the douchey lead actor taking their sweet time down the red carpet, the entirety of the camera crew already getting rushed into their seats offscreen.
Suppose, if you can, that it's "whatever". Rationalize that it probably gives the note a sense of urgency or something (you need that, god, you need that tonight) and that it's already too late to start worrying about losing yourself in all this attention to detail, about what fulfilled word count or pieces of unfolded laundry you're already sacrificing with this adamant sticking to form.
This is a to-do list, after all. Who even needs these, really?
(Dear lord, this is a very elaborate burst of anger for the first line of a makeshift to-do list. Are you sure you even have the strength to do this? d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶s̶w̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶,̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶N̶O̶T̶ ̶a̶n̶s̶w̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶,̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶t̶r̶y̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶n̶s̶w̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶,̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶l̶l̶ ̶a̶u̶t̶o̶m̶a̶t̶i̶c̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶"̶n̶o̶"̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶d̶e̶f̶a̶u̶l̶t̶,̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶N̶O̶T̶ ̶a̶n̶s̶w̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶
[✓] Take your meds. Do not convince yourself that you will not need them. You will.
[✓] Regret writing this list in pen.
[] Finish reflection. Put this at the top of the list because it's the one you expect to complete first. Not because you have confidence in your ability to do so, but because it's due tonight and you'll need to peer pressure yourself enough that the shame and academic anxiety overrides your executive dysfunction.
[✓] Do creative writing assignment. Make this second on the list because you actually do think you can finish this one on time (you probably can't) and that it'll be the easiest to breeze through (it absolutely will not), letting you ride off the high of a job well done and attack the rest of this list feeling like your workload is significantly lower than before. Conveniently forget that late stage ADHD comes with time blindness and a dopamine deficiency that makes you literally incapable of feeling any sense of accomplishment after finishing a task (Acknowledge that it also comes with a side of autism, on the house. ONLY acknowledge it, though. Do not delve into why you are frantically scratching out this list at 5:00 in the afternoon, all because you're convinced that establishing some sort of routine is more important than actually tackling what feels like near death deadlines. Do not start pacing around your room while unconsciously gesturing along with the extensive imaginary conversation between you and your roommate that starts with you making a comment and his response that essentially boils to "Think that might just be the 'tism, bud :P ", ending in an elaborate discussion of your symptoms and concerns, as if Luc didn't almost laugh when you suggested he consider majoring in psychology.
Do not open this goddamn can of worms, because you WILL spill it like a can of beans, and everything will get everywhere, and you already have to clean all the gunk off the floor, and you don't even know how the heck you're gonna manage that, a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶l̶e̶ ̶d̶e̶b̶a̶c̶l̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶w̶a̶i̶t̶ ̶u̶n̶t̶i̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶n̶i̶n̶g̶,̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶l̶y̶,̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶-̶
[] Open it anyway, because you are a coward, and natural selection will gather you first.
[✓] Submit everything at 11:59 and give yourself whiplash getting out of bed, dizzy from the nightmarish chemical cocktail that is Adderall and not enough water. Be dramatic about stumbling to your feet and leaning against the bedpost, because self-pity is an evolutionary survival tacit to comfort ourselves once our parents stop doing it for us. Pace around the room once the hot flash fades.
[] C̶l̶e̶a̶n̶ ̶d̶o̶r̶m̶.̶
[✓] Elaborate on the last checkbox because something ungodly thing possessed you to think that "Clean house" was specific enough for your brain to understand on five hours of sleep and prescription speed.
[✓] Do laundry. Tell yourself you will do it as soon as possible, to leave yourself as much time as possible to make all the different trips to the laundry room. Leave it until it's dark out, the image of you getting jumped and stabbed to death poking at your brain like a wet toothpick you keep absentmindedly fiddling with.
The fear will make you walk faster.
[✓] Take out the trash. Leave this for nightfall, because your father's monthly warnings and the lyrics of the song you performed for your ISP, of femicide and government priorities and how no one goes looking for little brown girls who go missing in the dead of night, and, heck, even the memory of being trapped outside your dorm with the racoons somehow can't override the anxiety.
[] Wash the dishes. Leave this for last, despite the smell hitting you as hard as the common area hits you each time you turn your key and yank.
[✓] Decline your roommate's offer to hang out tonight, despite all the time you've been wasting and will continue to waste for the rest of the night. Claim you're too tired in the morning.
[✓] Wipe down all the counters. Waste time every five, ten minutes. Sit with the tension between how mortifying it would be for one of your roommates to walk in on you wasting all this time vs. your insistence that keeping up with mindless chores is SO much easier, really, it's just the schoolwork that takes you forever.
Cut though said tension with a switchblade, if you have to.
[✓] Spend ten minutes trying to figure out how to attack the floor situation.
[] Attack the floor situation. Drive yourself crazy with the shoe scuffs you waited too long to deal with.
[✓] Pick up any extra trash. Muse about the time your mother and grandmother caught you in between a month long academic and the mourning of your childhood dependence, and proceeded to scold you for the rest of the night. Muse about hiding the absence of bra straps and fighting for the hair stylist's attention and "I don't want you to get mad when I say this, but sometimes, there are things that we don't like, but we have to to do them anyway, so...[insert the most horrific, victim blaming, powerless thinking you've ever heard in your life]". Muse about the meaning of the word "presentable", the antonym of skin and sentence structure and wandering, glassy eyes that give you away every time.
[✓] Play the sound of mother's fretting over the state of your roommate's bed sheets over the sound of your explaining, of what depression does to the art of your cleaning skills, somewhere in your head, old syllabus crinkling between your fingernails. Wonder if his tarot prediction of a depressive state will come true, if your mother will complain about your room then. If it's different when it's you.
[] Finish resenting her by the time she arrives to come get you in the morning.
[] Pack your stuff for tomorrow. Forget one thing you actually need and one thing you don't, but your mom wants you to bring anyway.
[] Do the billions of things you're supposed to do sometime during the semester (preferably a month ago), but will probably end up stuck with during finals week.
[✓] Set an alarm. Wake up before it goes off.
YOU ARE READING
And the lights are not fluorescent, and there are no words on the page.
No FicciónMy final portfolio for one of the creative writing courses I took based around exploring the creative nonfiction essay in its many literary forms, with any and all identifying names or signifiers censored out. (Note: The author's preface was written...
