Bucket Lists

Tonight I started browsing through some of my old writings, I guess to spark some inspiration.

I’ve always kept journals, but I’ve also kept quite an assortment of writings on my computer – letters to people I never sent to get my thoughts down on paper, crappy poems, story ideas, random musings.  They date back to 2006, starting the summer before my freshman year of college.  Wow, what a different person I was back then.  That girl was so naive about the world, yet in a way still wise beyond her years.  I wrote of my first love, of my stresses and anxieties about starting college, of my dreams for the future.  Apparently I wanted to write a novel, even back then.  And then I found something I’d completely forgotten about – a bucket list.

I used to make bucket lists all the time in high school and college.  Didn’t we all?  Crazy dreams we wanted to try to accomplish when life seemed so vast.  This list was a little different though.  I started it by listing off everything I’d already accomplished by that point (it was 2007 and I was all of 18 years old at the time I wrote this particular list).  By the time I was 18 I’d already done things like traveled outside of the country, fallen in love, seen a Broadway musical, traveled in a boat across the sea (Mediterranean), performed on stage, and done silly things like reenacted the “Titanic” scene on the bow of a ship (I know, I was also a weird kid).  But what struck me was my bucket list.  To be able to see the dreams I had at 18, and to see that not only do I still have some of those dreams, but that some of them have actually come true.  I can tell my 18-year-old self that I have, in fact, ridden on an elephant (actually more like swam with, fed, and played with but same concept) and taught an AP course.  I’ve backpacked through Europe and kissed in the rain.  I’ve planted a garden and gotten a tattoo; I’ve painted on canvas, and while I may not have perfected my cooking skills, I’d say I’ve seriously improved on them.  What a treasure to be able to look back on my life and say I’ve accomplished things my teenage self only ever dreamed of, and more.  My 18-year-old self would never have put things on her bucket list like run a half-marathon or travel to Thailand.  I never would have thought I’d have watched the sun rise and set in the same day, or that I’d have my dream home at 31 years old, or that I could say I’ve lived in France or Washington, DC (though both were for very short periods of time).

Looking back on a bucket list written over 10 years ago has taught me that life is mysterious.  We never really know where it’s going to take us.  Some dreams change, and some stay the same.  The point is to have dreams.  Our dreams lead us on adventures we never truly thought possible.  They help us cultivate new dreams.  They teach us what it means to truly live, and to live a life with no regrets.

I am a very different person now than I was back then.  I have experienced incredible hardship, and immense joy.  I have known pain, heartache, loss.  I have known love of all kinds, happiness, peace.  I have made amends and am still working through anger.  I have worked hard to make my life what it is today.  I think my 18-year-old self would be really, really happy to know how her life has turned out.  Sure there are dreams on that bucket list that may never come to fruition.  But that is because I’ve made room in my heart for new dreams, new possibilities.

I do not regret a single dream I’ve dreamed, nor a single day lived.  I am proud of who I am, proud of who I was, and proud of who I am becoming.

So make lists.  Dream dreams.  Life the life you have always imagined for yourself.  You only get one.