as long as i can remember, i have had an ongoing sort of to-do list in my mind. i’m also a list-maker on paper, but the one in my mind is something else. included on it are things i need make up to people. a ledger, of sorts, of debits and credits, that paralyze me with guilt. it is a constant, perpetual, loooooong list, dating back decades, in some cases. i don’t think i could ever get to the end of it.
some people would call this a manifestation of anxiety. i guess it is. but for me, it’s also a manifestation of shame, of a mind that was constantly trying to anticipate where i could go wrong, and to right it when i inevitably did. if i was stupid enough to make a mistake, i needed to make up for it forever, and i mean for. ever.
when i am stumbling around in the wilderness of shame, as i have been lately, this list is everywhere. a blaring marquee in my mind, in black and white all-caps, with spotlights. projected onto the backs of my eyelids at night. and i hear it everywhere, too, like it’s a script everyone knows, a litany of my wrongness.
i don’t even know who i would be without it, except i’d really like to find out.
**this post was actually written on Jan 12/19 but backdated to the day the word came out**
at the sea 
I’d like to find out too… That’s not a list anybody needs, and not a list you deserve to have spotlighted. And I bet everything you’ve done wrong, or the good things people have done for you, are weighted far more heavy than the things you do right. None of its fair,that’s a huge amount of guilt and shame to carry, to never make right
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