Laugh until I cry, kiss the most beautiful girl in the world....
 |
| 'Kiss the most beautiful girl in the world' - how cute is that?! |
When Cub Sweetheart retired, he was a few days shy of 59 and I was a few months short of being 55. So sort of young, maybe, but after giving the same company over 35 years we felt the time was right. After the boxes were moved and unpacked 1200 miles south of where he'd shown up for work the past fifteen years, we realized we needed to find our bearings again. Purpose, an order to our days, and reasons to get out of bed in the morning.
I'm of the mind there are very few problems in life that can't be solved with a spreadsheet, full of columns that have headings at the top and totals at the bottom. I made lists of places to volunteer, short day trips, etc. etc. I also made a bucket list for me, with a good number of items involving CS's presence since he's not the type to make one of his own.
#1 Learn to play the piano
#2 Learn to speak Spanish / Spanglish
#3 Knit a sweater
#4 Ocean trip with my mom and sister
#5 Get family photos scrapbooked
#6 Write my memoir
#7 Go on a mission trip
#8 Learn to dance
#9 See the Grand Canyon with Cub Sweetheart
#10 Visit NYC with Cub Sweetheart
#11 Go to the Rosebowl with Cub Sweetheart
#12 Go to Europe with Cub Sweetheart
This was all written on a piece of paper, torn out of my yearly journal. Nothing fancy, and somewhat off the top of my head. Over the years I've made a few notes in the margins, crossed off an item or two and revised a couple.
This spring CS will have been retired eight years, and we're now solid in our 60's. Time slips by, or it rushes past us, being used up with so many urgent things that won't matter a few years, or months, or even weeks down the road.
As of today, 2018, I've accomplished a few of the things on the list; sadly one is impossible now and one had been crossed off. I didn't make resolutions for 2018, but I did set some goals. One of them was to revisit that list, and redo it.
Here's my 2018 - updated version:
#1 Learn to play piano (I have my second lesson today and play a mean For He's a Jolly Good Fellow. Counting this one as an 'in process'.
#2 Learn to speak Spanish - I now live in Texas and it would be very helpful
#3 Knit a sweater - I've done two - both baby but I'm counting them.
#4 Revised to an ocean visit with my daughters, and we went on a cruise two years ago.
#5 (Removed photos) replaced with l'earn to swim laps for exercise'
#6 The book is partially done, but I still don't know if I want to go fiction or memoir.
#7 Mission trip - we went to Guatamala in 2011.
#8 Learn to dance - still terrible but hopeful
#9 See the Grand Canyon - possibly this fall or next.
#10 Visit NYC - on the someday list
#11 Rosebowl - CS says when his college team, CU, plays we'll buy tickets. I think it might be more fun to attend when we don't care who wins.....
#12 Europe - we've traveled to Mexico, Canada, but never Europe. Thinking about a Mediterranean cruise for our 40th.
So to the person who hated bucket lists, if you don't have a goal then you've already failed. In eight years I / we haven't accomplished them all, nor do we want to have done them all yet, but I / we have done four, or 25%. I so wish I'd been able to take my mother and sister to the ocean. We had plans to sit in beach chairs, all three of us with floppy beach hats atop our heads, and just watch the world go by. Sadly we never did this, and now my mother is gone. But I replaced that with a cruise with my two daughters. We took a total of two photos, but oh the memories we made.
I heard a pastor say, about five years ago, that he was continually struck that most people live their lives unintentionally. Just wake up and face the day, day in and day out; weeks, months and years go by, while dreams fall to the wayside. Having a little piece of paper in the front pocket of my daily journal keeps those hopes and dreams and plans in front of me. The whole premise of this blog is that I want to live my life intentionally. I want to number the days because we all only get so many, and I want them to be filled with memories made with all those I hold dear. I want to use up every bit of this life God has given me.
I knew, years before my mother died, that when she was gone my biggest regret would be for all the things she so wanted to do, but never did. The places she wanted to go, the lives she wanted to impact, and the book she spent her entire life hoping to write but never did get around to. Her lack of resources, broken relationships and then her mental decline stole time she thought she still had. I am so very thankful for the trips we took together, driving across the mountains with Bruce Springsteen playing through the car's speakers (her choice, not mine), going to see her grandparents' home one more time and picking ripe figs off the tree in the backyard and popping them in our mouths, and standing on the deck of the boat, wearing our little blue raincoats and being showered with fine mist from Niagara Falls, pulling off the road and buying a striped watermelon from a farmer in bib overalls, and eating it for supper in our rented cabin that night. But I wish we'd done so much more.
Do you have a bucket list, or a dream list, or a list of plans you want to accomplish in this lifetime? If you'd like to make some plans, but don't know where to get started go HERE. One of my grandsons is only thirteen, but last year he made a Bucket List and it scope of it was amazing. That kid has dreams and plans!
If you don't have one, it might not hurt to watch THIS MOVIE either. Make plans! Live big and brave! Dream far and wide! And if you don't accomplish them all? If you or I never do learn to dance worth a hoot or speak another language, or be able to do algebra (don't put that on your bucket list, please!)? At least we gave it a shot. Better to have planned and not accomplished it all than to not bother to dream at all.
Comments