I don’t know if it’s because I’m turning 30 this year, or if it’s just that now that I’m done having my babies maybe I want to know that there is something more out there, besides laundry and diapers. It’s not that I don’t enjoy my kids, or that I’m not grateful for them, it’s just that I still want to know that there is an adventure waiting for me, that my identity isn’t totally illustrated by the word mother. Wow, I so don’t want to sound like I am ungrateful for my kids, I know how blessed I am, so let me get to the point….
Dave and I have made a bucket list over the last twelve years. It isn’t in any particular order, just a list of things we would like to do before we kick the bucket. I know it seems silly to have made a list at our young age, but really we aren’t guaranteed 24 hours, knowing me I could close my computer, stand up, trip on the laptop cord and impale myself on one of my kids’ toys. Death is always waiting, just right around the corner, the question is what corner and when will I turn it?
I understand that I probably sound a little morbid here, or at the very minimum extremely crazy, but really there is so much I haven’t done, and haven’t seen. So Dave and I figured, why wait until we’re old, let’s get started now when we can still physically enjoy what this world has to offer.
So here’s our list, some are silly, some are hugely important and others just are- well they are what they are, just things to do because for some reason or another they provide us with a sense of fulfillment in who we are.
So here goes:
Explore the Mayan Ruins
Explore Australia
Read the Entire Bible
Dog Sled in Alaska
Go to the Indi 500
Swim with Dolphins
Watch Grizzly Bears feed in Alaska
Salmon fishing in Alaska
Release endangered baby sea turtles at the Plananitos Sea Turtle Camp in Mexico
Visit Mt. Rushmore
Geocache in every state in the U.S.
See the Egyptian Pyramids
See the Coliseum in Greece
Go sport fishing on Islamorada in the Florida Keys
See Brett Farv play in the NFL
Hike the Grand Canyon
Do a guided Elk hunt in Arizona
Raft the Colorado River
Rent a house boat and explore Lake Mead
Hike the Garden of the Gods in Southern Utah
Do a 2 week backpacking trip in the Sky Lakes Wilderness
Hunt for diamonds at the Diamond National Park in Arkansas
Explore Glacier National Park
Explore Scotland
Drive the Alaskan Hwy, and then buy a bumper sticker bragging about it.
Build an orphanage in Haiti
See the world’s largest ball of yarn
Take a cross country road trip
Do an African Safari
See the Great Wall of China
Watch a Civil War reenactment, visit Gettysburg
See Niagara Falls
Throw a dart once a year at a huge wall map of the earth and travel to wherever the dart lands
Visit Normandy
See Tunisia in Africa (where Grandpa Schober was during the war)
Renew our vows on a beach somewhere
Drink beer from real steins in Germany
Visit every State Park along HWY 101
Kayak the San Juan Islands
Ski Vale, Colorado
Visit Loveland, Colorado (Dave’s birthplace)
Zip line in Sequoia National Park
Sky dive
Catch fire flies in a jar
Visit Pearl Harbor
So this is just a start, and well, it’s plenty to keep us busy for the rest of our lives. It isn’t just about crossing things off this list, it’s about living everyday like it’s our last, it’s about showing up 100%, not taking anything for granted, and realizing that the feeling I get when spending a sick day with my girls, cuddled on the couch together, is just as important as the feeling I’ll get when I zip line through the canopy of the Sequoias…these are the fibers that we weave together to form our lives, our legacy. I want my girls to know that I valued every moment, because in the end the moments are all we have. They may be woven into 100 years, or 30 years. They may be messy and ragged, they may not make sense, and they don’t have to. Most of our lives don’t make sense until that final moment when our eyes are truly opened. As a very wise person once said, “Life should not be measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
I hope that we will hit everything on our list; I hope that our journey is filled with everything we hope for, and a lot that we don’t…just to keep us on our toes. After all I bet the list God has written for us is much better than our own, He always plans so much BIGGER than we can ever dream.
May your list take your breath away…before your breath is taken away.
