Kicking the Bucket List
As I sit at my desk unmotivated and preoccupied, the hot pink headlines on the corner of a magazine catch my eye. There in bold print reads the question “Have you written your bucket list?”
I think about it for a few minutes then conclude that my first bucket list has already come and gone. I am now embarking on forty five years of life. I had my true love, given birth to two children, and garnered a successful career. I have been lucky to travel to places near and far, experiencing the beauty and majesty of the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, the Atlantic and Pacific coast among other things. I have been snow skiing, water skiing, deep sea fishing, parasailing and whale watching through the course my bucket full of life events. I did these things in my youth, at a time when my body was lighter and brain way less crowded.
Today, It is much harder to create a bucket list. Maybe because I am older, much wiser and immensely aware that God has blessed me with all I will ever need. A family whom I adore, friends to share my life with and my own drum to march to my own beat with. Does anything else matter? I have no attachment to material things, with the exception of those things passed on to me that hold some sentimental value. Most who know me would say I am easy going, I don’t dress fancy, I don’t like expensive jewelry and I am satisfied with cereal for supper most of the time.
So, if today, I found out that I have one week to live, it would not be a tragedy by any Shakespearian accounts. Regrets, would I have? Well, yes, doesn’t everybody. But I am a smart enough cookie to know that I cannot change the past, I can only hope I have learned from it and I have been forgiven. And in my relationship with God, I think he has pardoned my failures and knew that everyday I tried and sometimes faltered to live by the simple religion of kindness. Cause in the end, above all else, that’s what people will remember anyway.
But if there is such a thing as a second bucket list, here goes:
Visit the Museu Picasso in Barcelona Spain
Vacation in the Seychelles Islands
A crabbing trip where I fill every ice chest I bring
Take my mother to NYC
Road trip along the entire east coast
Living long enough to see my children have children
Volunteer a summer for Habitat for Humanity
Write a novel
Spend a week alone in a yurt on the Big Sur coast
Fly fishing in the Yellowstone River in Montana
Horseback riding on Cannon beach in Oregon
I think about it for a few minutes then conclude that my first bucket list has already come and gone. I am now embarking on forty five years of life. I had my true love, given birth to two children, and garnered a successful career. I have been lucky to travel to places near and far, experiencing the beauty and majesty of the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, the Atlantic and Pacific coast among other things. I have been snow skiing, water skiing, deep sea fishing, parasailing and whale watching through the course my bucket full of life events. I did these things in my youth, at a time when my body was lighter and brain way less crowded.
Today, It is much harder to create a bucket list. Maybe because I am older, much wiser and immensely aware that God has blessed me with all I will ever need. A family whom I adore, friends to share my life with and my own drum to march to my own beat with. Does anything else matter? I have no attachment to material things, with the exception of those things passed on to me that hold some sentimental value. Most who know me would say I am easy going, I don’t dress fancy, I don’t like expensive jewelry and I am satisfied with cereal for supper most of the time.
So, if today, I found out that I have one week to live, it would not be a tragedy by any Shakespearian accounts. Regrets, would I have? Well, yes, doesn’t everybody. But I am a smart enough cookie to know that I cannot change the past, I can only hope I have learned from it and I have been forgiven. And in my relationship with God, I think he has pardoned my failures and knew that everyday I tried and sometimes faltered to live by the simple religion of kindness. Cause in the end, above all else, that’s what people will remember anyway.
But if there is such a thing as a second bucket list, here goes:
Visit the Museu Picasso in Barcelona Spain
Vacation in the Seychelles Islands
A crabbing trip where I fill every ice chest I bring
Take my mother to NYC
Road trip along the entire east coast
Living long enough to see my children have children
Volunteer a summer for Habitat for Humanity
Write a novel
Spend a week alone in a yurt on the Big Sur coast
Fly fishing in the Yellowstone River in Montana
Horseback riding on Cannon beach in Oregon
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