Forgive Me Father

Smart Girl from To-Do List

I prolly spend more time thinking (and writing and oh, imagining) about relationship stuff than I should. I should prolly be out doing more important things like volunteering at the old folks home, reading the political articles in The New Yorker instead of skipping them, and repairing familial relationships instead of starting and stopping new ones with strangers. I should prolly quit obsessing about why the last man I dated did not fall in love with me. I should prolly quit flirting with the any and all online suitors who approach me. I should prolly I should prolly I should prolly.

This is not really a post. This is a PostSecret. Only it's more complicated than would fit on a postcard and I really should, ahem, write something even if I am dog tired, my eyeballs aflame, my knees wobbly and my face raw from razor burn.

I once dated a man. He was a man and not at all a boy and for that I was eternally grateful. It was not at all that long ago, although, its memory yellows from age each passing day. I once dated a man and not unlike me, he was a man who kept lists. He had a little notebook or two or three and in no particular order wrote lists both banal and weighty.

And ladies and gentleman, I liked to look through these notebooks.

They were everyday lists and I wanted to know the everyday man. At least, that's what I told myself. Groceries to buy, bills to pay, measurements, addresses, shorthanded ideas that yet remain locked in his mind. And they were scattered about, on the kitchen table, impromptu lists scratched onto receipts, scraps of paper that fluttered to the floor when I picked up my bags or brought in the groceries.

They charmed me. All of them. I tried to ascertain which were written before me and which after me. There were lists of books and movies many of which I had recommended. If they were written into the notebooks, they never made any kind of chronological sense. As a book, from beginning to end, they read like a puzzle.

And then I stumbled upon a list. It was a list about me. Sort of a pro and con list if you will. It was, like most of his lists, a short list. A mere five or six items. I never understood its formula. There was a check next to makes me feel wanted and I can't quite remember the other something like fun! There was no check next to communication or creativity. There was an awkward phrase about the ability (mine or his?) to evolve sexually for which I received no check as well. I couldn't tell if he had written the list the day before or months prior. I didn't know if the checks were like extra bonus points or if he really thought I was completely devoid of creativity. Whatever it meant, it was painfully clear to me I had not passed this particular test. I had only gotten two out of six check marks. And in the dozen or so little words written in blue ink onto the lined notebook paper, this archipelago of words scattered across the blank page, I read the story of our relationship in its entirety. And this story did not, as it turns out, have a happy ending.