A life of lists

I die, or before Tuesday

As years pass, lists have become an ever greater part of my life.

Long lists, short lists, daily lists, weekly lists, year lists, life lists, shopping lists, what pills and potions I need to take lists, things to do before I die lists, work lists…

The list goes on – but you get the idea.

I keep lists on my phone, lists in my daily notebook, lists in a big leather-bound desk journal. That’s my serious list. If it goes in there it must be done, before I die. But I still haven’t sorted out my pension or got a funeral plan, so there’s work to do on that list.

Lists give me a sense of control in an otherwise very uncontrolled existence. For a few moments, as I write the list, I get a brief moment to feel like I’m the sort of bloke what gets stuff done.

But I’m not. This is what usually happens…

There’s a brief endorphin kick when I actually get something done on the list and a line goes through it. And here’s a confession: there are times when I’ve done something or completed a task, only to find it’s not on a list. So, I write the task down and then draw a line through it. It’s never quite as satisfying, but it makes the list look like I’m doing stuff. Every day is about doing stuff and there seems to be more and more stuff to do all the time.

I didn’t write any lists during my teens or 20s. Didn’t seem a need. I either didn’t have that much to do, or there didn’t seem to be any rush to get anything done.

Lists upon lists upon lists

And then stuff builds up. Keeps building up. To the point I can write two sides of A4 just for the weekend. Once upon a time, if I’d written a list for the weekend it would have read:

• Drive to girlfriend’s house

• Have sex

• Get drunk

• Have sex

• Drive home

And all items would have been ticked off. Oh happy days.

As an example of how my life has changed, here’s how a weekend list might look today:

• Walk dogs

• Drive son to ParkRun

• Go to Tesco’s on way back (add list of food)

• Mow garden

• Wash car

• Fill out tax return

• Update cycle training plan

• Pay credit card

  
  

For this small D&C audience I’ll stick with the list I have made for my year of athletic conquests. The list I started making while I recovered from heart surgery last year.

To mark, what I am describing ad the greatest comeback of all time (nothing like blowing smoke up your own arse), it starts in July 2025, exactly one year from the day I was lying in intensive care full of tubes coming out of every orifice.

2025:

• July 19 : E’tape

• Stour Valley Path 100km run

• Maldon triathlon

• London to Brighton off-road bike challenge

• Brighton and Hove triathlon

• Alton Water 10k swim

I don’t want to mention how much it has cost me to enter all of these events, for fear my better half might read this. Because I also need to add the cost of a planned week in Majorca at a triathlon training camp; numerous trips north to train in Scotland or the Peak District to try and build some climbing muscles into my skinny, barely good enough to cover the Fens legs.

Chuck in the fact I had a few of these events booked for last year but didn’t make any of them due to somewhat disiatrous heart incident.

But that’s all cleared up now. I’m six months post surgery. It’s a new year. I’m a renewed 54 year old man filled with plans, lists, ambitions and hope.

I just have to  contend with the rest of my body…the asthma, the relentless hayfever that wipes me out from May to August – just when I’m doing most of the events – the achilles tendons that I’m now assuming are made of nothing stronger than a thin strand of cotton.

Could this be yet another list that I get nowehere near fulfuilling – to go with all the other lists?  I could make a book of them. At the end of my life, my last day on this planet, I could go back through – but how depressing would that be? The final affirmation that so much of my life was wasted, so much unachieved, so much time spent writing lists when it would clearly have been better to just bloody get on with stuff!

What would Seneca say?

On the shortness of life: “So you must match time’s swiftness with your speed at using it, and you must drink quickly as though from a rapid stream that will not always flow.”

Seneca: "a rapid stream that will not always flow"

The stream is flowing and definitely showing signs of slowing.

So, the list is written. It’s here. Unless this failing body stops me, a major organ should suddenly stop working or some other calamity should befall me I should have a stack more medals to hang in my office and a few more stories, inflated anecdotes, to bore family, colleagues and anyone who happens to come across this blog.