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Why I Didn't Have a Bucket List


Random conversations at work tend to be the best sort of conversations. One such conversation occurred last week that has been on my mind ever since. In true ADHD fashion, I cannot tell you how this conversation came about. I can only tell you that by the conclusion of that conversation, I have been contemplating deeply on my bucket list. Two of the three of us had bucket lists, can you guess which person didn't have one? Yes, that would be me. Oddly enough, during my recent vacation to Tennessee with my best girlfriends, the mention of go-karting as something on one of their bucket lists didn't get this sort of response out of me. In fact, I thought it was cute that that was one of the things on their list. So, why was last week's conversation different? Why was that the moment I thought about what was on mine, and did I actually have one? It's taken a week to figure it all out, but this is what I came up with.

First, I didn't even know what should go on my bucket list. I'd already done a lot of things I've wanted to do, so what could possibly be on my list? I didn't know. In order to figure that out, I had to, with the help of Pinterest, figure out what it was that I've already done. I made my list and came up with these things...


I have done a lot of things in my 40 years of life. Some of these things aren't really bucket list things, but I've done them so, to me they count. I think, in part, that because I've already done so many things, I never thought about what else there would be that I might like to add to my "bucket list". It never occurred to me that the things that I've been saying I want to do should be something that goes on a bucket list. I think that there are a lot of people like that. They speak about what they want to do, but never actually put it into action. In truth, there are still a lot of things I would like to do. In talking with Curtis, I realized that maybe the reason I didn't have a bucket list is because I don't want to think of the list as something to achieve before I die, but something to achieve while I live. 

I've been in survival mode for far too long, to the point where I've allowed my thoughts to be just that, thoughts. I still have so many things I want to do. I have a friend with whom I was supposed to go on a trip to Phuket, Thailand. This was supposed to be back in 2020 or 2021, I'm not 100% sure. In all honesty, I'd paid my deposit, I tried my best to not have to cancel, but the world shutting down, my check getting garnished, legal issues, and the discouraging words of someone who was also going with us not only hurt my feelings but sadly caused me to fall back in a way. I was more than excited, I'd taken my passport photo and everything, I just didn't have the money to actually get my passport, nor actually make the trip. The hurt I felt because of it kind of never healed. Looking back, I think it affected me to where I didn't look past the present, and refused to look to the future when it came to travel. I've been in a sort of limbo ever since, but I'm not going to stay there.

Financially, I still can't do what I want to really do. I still can't take the big trips I want to take, like going to Italy and staying in a Tuscan Villa, or going to the Maldives, Fiji, Japan, or Ireland, but I can work on the little things on my list. Things like horseback riding as an adult, ice skating, riding a motorcycle, kissing/dancing in the rain, ATV off-roading, and flying first class. Those are things I can do, and will do. Nothing in my bucket list suggests that I want to do these things before I die. When I think about it... these are all things I want to do to live. 





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