All the Things I've Always Wanted to Do . . .
My friend, Michelle at Boulderneigh wrote about bucket lists this week. She wrote about them in a different way - how she had seen notes about them on a blog; notes about dreams deferred and dreams lost, and decisions regretted, and that she found it very sad.
I never called my list a bucket list, and I'm not sure I ever wrote it down - most likely because I've had one since long before there was a film of that name. And frankly, I kind of find the term "bucket list" to be almost offensive. Like one is racing to do stuff before dying, like you waited until the last minute to live your life and then had to cram it all in - what a horrible way to live that would be.
No - one of my best friends died in his early 30's, and I learned, at a relatively young age, that I had better start doing all the things I wanted to do - that life is short - that life is meant to be lived - because I didn't want to be a person filled with regret (a person with a bucket list). As mentioned, I'm not sure I ever actually made a list, but forever ago I started doing all the things I've always wanted to do. Some of them have included:
To begin with, it's time to go through the house and see what needs to go. What can benefit someone else now. Clearing my space has always been uplifting for me. It's time to carve out the time to make music again. To read other than just on the train on the way to work. To explore all my avenues of creativity, and to have time to just "be" rather than constantly "do." How this is going to work, I'm not quite sure yet - but I know that it will be a mistake to not rein in the craziness that seems to have become my life. I've always wanted control over my life and it doesn't feel that way to me any longer - it feels like outside forces are controlling me and dictating my time and schedule. I would prefer to do that myself, thank you very much.
I've learned that at each stage of life stuff comes up - stuff you thought you worked through and dealt with comes back again to be examined and worked through. Again. (It's bothersome. Really.) And so, here I go - continuing on my path, figuring it out as I go along.
I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe I just don't have the energy I had at 25, that maybe I'm not physically capable of doing everything I might want to do. I feel sad when I think about that possibility, because I have never liked to feel limited in any way. My mom raised me to believe that I could do anything - that I could compete on any level with anyone (man or woman) and that's how I have lived my life. And now - well, now I'm not so sure that I want to continue to compete all the time for every effing thing. Not sure exactly what that means . . . but I guess I'm going to find out.
Wish me luck.
I never called my list a bucket list, and I'm not sure I ever wrote it down - most likely because I've had one since long before there was a film of that name. And frankly, I kind of find the term "bucket list" to be almost offensive. Like one is racing to do stuff before dying, like you waited until the last minute to live your life and then had to cram it all in - what a horrible way to live that would be.
No - one of my best friends died in his early 30's, and I learned, at a relatively young age, that I had better start doing all the things I wanted to do - that life is short - that life is meant to be lived - because I didn't want to be a person filled with regret (a person with a bucket list). As mentioned, I'm not sure I ever actually made a list, but forever ago I started doing all the things I've always wanted to do. Some of them have included:
- Driving all of Old Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica (what an awesome trip that was!)
- Getting a tattoo. . . ;-)
- Buying a Gucci scarf (it's so beautiful - an extravagance I have never regretted)
- Learning to play the bagpipes (oh yeah)
- Reading most of the great books that I somehow got out of college without having read (Ernest Hemingway - awesome; Henry Miller - not so much)
- Learning to spin
- Traveling to Morocco
- Retreating to Iona
- Writing a blog
- Getting physically stronger
To begin with, it's time to go through the house and see what needs to go. What can benefit someone else now. Clearing my space has always been uplifting for me. It's time to carve out the time to make music again. To read other than just on the train on the way to work. To explore all my avenues of creativity, and to have time to just "be" rather than constantly "do." How this is going to work, I'm not quite sure yet - but I know that it will be a mistake to not rein in the craziness that seems to have become my life. I've always wanted control over my life and it doesn't feel that way to me any longer - it feels like outside forces are controlling me and dictating my time and schedule. I would prefer to do that myself, thank you very much.
I've learned that at each stage of life stuff comes up - stuff you thought you worked through and dealt with comes back again to be examined and worked through. Again. (It's bothersome. Really.) And so, here I go - continuing on my path, figuring it out as I go along.
I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe I just don't have the energy I had at 25, that maybe I'm not physically capable of doing everything I might want to do. I feel sad when I think about that possibility, because I have never liked to feel limited in any way. My mom raised me to believe that I could do anything - that I could compete on any level with anyone (man or woman) and that's how I have lived my life. And now - well, now I'm not so sure that I want to continue to compete all the time for every effing thing. Not sure exactly what that means . . . but I guess I'm going to find out.
Wish me luck.
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