People like Pace were aliens to me. Or rather, I felt like an alien compared to them. How did they know just how to move and act and talk? My whole life, I’ve always felt so alone. What would it be like to charm everyone everywhere you went? What would it be like to say exactly what you mean when you meant to say it? Or even if you do make a little bit of a mistake, to be able to make a joke about it and laugh it off.
And,oh my God, I was still staring. Thankfully, nobody could see that I’d just been drooling over him.
It wasn’t just the golden Leo man that had me hesitant to turn the page to the start of the “ber” months of the year. These months were by far the busiest in Cozy Creek. We loved a reason to have an event. There were dozens just for fall alone. Which meant another four months of me trying to work myself up to go somewhere, only to talk myself out of it, and then wallow as I hid indoors for months.
Turning down Grandma’s helpful attempts to get me out.
Grandma.
With every passing year, her comfort and health moved up the priority pile. I would be here at the sunset of her life andwould need to be able to call doctors and make appointments. I would need to be able to hold conversations about difficult topics.
The anxiety of Grandma’s health and happiness being at the mercy of my current brain was terrifying.
I wanted to change. The time was nigh.
Determined and feeling the same trickles of excitement that came with finding a new fun hobby, I made a decision. I reached for the nearest notebook and pen.
I couldn’t help myself; I was a tactile person, especially when I really wanted to process something. It was the reason I took laborious notes in college instead of recording them, but I almost never went back to them. I just needed to write things out to feel them settle.
Plus, Dr. Spinner was probably right. Making a list and checking things off it would be exponentially more satisfying than zeros and ones in my phone.
That being said, I would have to guard this list with my life.
I ripped out a page from one of the notebooks that littered the shop with the logo of knitting needles and a ball of yarn that had a gray topknot like a granny. I flipped it over and wrote, “My To-Do List.”
I let myself feel excited about the notion that this list might actually fix me. If I could make it to the end, then I could prove that I wasn’t fundamentally broken. Unfortunately, that same brain that locked me in a prison of what-ifs also understood that the only way to change my life was with action.
And that sucked.
“Time to get serious,” I said out loud, and a shiver of hopeful anticipation straightened my spine as I got to work.
3
Sophie
LIFE TO-DO LIST
AKA things toaccomplish before I die.
But sooner rather than later. One month to complete them all. No, that feels too rushed. Maybe by the end of the year?
Like, before I get too scared to ever leave the house again and turn into a sad, shriveled-up, lonely person who never goes outside and makes tiny little friends out of the dust bunnies under my bed, and it takes months before my neighbors find my body ...
So yeah, sooner than later.
In no particular order—actually, the order is pretty particular.
In least scary to most scary order:
Get a pedicure.
Wear red lipstick in public.
