My friend Jessica just wrote a blog detailing her Bucket List and it inspired me to revisit mine. I've always been a dreamer, of course, but when I hit 30, I decided to evaluate where I was in my life and where I wanted to be. During that self-analysis, I did a scrapbook layout that included my Bucket List.
The list included (though wasn't limited to):
- Parasailing
- Have a [scrapbook] layout published in a magazine or book
- Spend New Year's Eve in Times Square
- Go white river rafting
- Cuddle with a koala in Australia
- Swim with dolphins
-
See a show on Broadway
-
Have furniture that isn't second-hand
- Travel through Europe
- Take my kids to Disney World
- Visit the ghosts at Myrtle Plantation
- Spend a week with [hubby] in Hawaii
- Own my own home 5/1/05
- Go camping in Yellowstone
- Hike & camp in the Colorado Rockies
-
Gamble in a real Las Vegas Casino
- Do the touristy thing in DC and NYC 5/8/09
- Live long enough to see my children grown and married
- Go stormchasing and see a tornado up close 11/06
- Spend a weekend holed up in a cabin in the wilderness
- Go on a cruise to Alaska
- Live on a farm - complete with animals and a garden
- Learn how to can veggies like tomatoes and pickles
- Learn how to ski or ice skate
- Tour Civil War battlefields and plantations in the South
- Own my own scrapbook store
-
Write a book and have it published
- Have my portrait painted
- Be in a financially secure place to where all bills are paid ahead of time & there's money left in the bank
One might think this list is a long, but I don't. I think it's perfectly attainable...that is, if I still wanted to do those things. I don't. I couldn't care less about gambling in Vegas, any of the scrapbooking stuff or living on a farm. I'd happily give up the Alaska part of the cruise dream (and if I did, then that dream was accomplished in May 2011 when I cruised to the Bahamas). The koalas can go, too.
If I wrote a list now, it would include some very different things...things I left off the original list (but have since come true) and things I didn't even know I wanted until the opportunity arose. Things like:
- Love more
- Bitch less
- Repair relationships worth saving and eliminate those that aren't
- Rekindle old friendships
- Don't be afraid to be honest with people - as Dr. Seuss says, “Be Who You Are and Say What You Feel Because Those Who Mind Don't Matter and Those Who Matter Don't Mind.”
- Realize beauty isn't in the physical things
- Take better care of my body
These are the "fluffy" ones, as I call them (all of which I've accomplished, by the way) - the ones that are just good points to live by. As for actual tangible things:
- Get back to my high school weight (Yes, this is totally attainable.)
- Meet New Kids on the Block 4/6/09 (Donnie & Joe), 5/8/09 (Donnie, Jordan, Joe & Danny), 7/14/09 (Jon), 7/15/09, 5/12/11 (all of them)
-
Redecorate my bedroom without the help of an interior designer
-
Visit Los Angeles
- See the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in person
- Be an extra in a movie or a television show
- Put my feet in the water of both the Atlantic & Pacific oceans Atlantic 10/2/95, Pacific 5/22/10
- Live in NYC for a year
-
See a Celtics basketball game in person(courtside seats next to Donnie Wahlberg would be a bonus) 4/1/12
-
Have one of my photographs displayed publicly8/11/11
The thing about a bucket list is this: for as many of my dreams that I acknowledge and recognize and strive to achieve, there are hundreds that lurk beneath the surface that I didn't even know I wanted until they happened. Things like becoming friends with Sherri Shepherd, having Jon Knight seek me out during a concert, traveling to NYC on the spur of the moment (twice), an opportunity to travel over 6,000 miles in a year to see NKOTB perform. Every day is filled with surprises and encounters I never dreamed of.
So I guess if I don't accomplish everything on my bucket list, it's okay because I've been so blessed in so many other areas of my life. My cup runneth over.
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