An ode to all the things I forgot about on my bucket list.
There are so many things I want to do someday.
I want to run a marathon and learn to surf well. I want to finally become fluent in French and be able to have a decent conversation in American Sign Language. I want to learn so many things and go so many places; even still, I keep pushing things off.
We have been talking about “crucial conversations” in one of our classes, and it’s been making me think about all the things that I leave unsaid, assuming I’ll be able to say them tomorrow. I’m not trying to be a pessimist in this blog post, and I’m sorry if that’s how I’m coming across; I guess I’m just trying to learn how to be more realistic about the fact that, as much as I can try to plan the future, I don’t know anything.
I wonder if that’s the beauty of life, though: our complete lack of surety about what that mysterious Tomorrow might hold could be liberating if we let it be.
I’ve been learning to tell people that I appreciate them the first moment that I think about it.
I’ve been learning to go do the thing rather than just daydream about it.
I’ve been learning that today was, at one point, a Someday. Today was once part of the grand mysterious Tomorrow I knew nothing about.
Maybe this is a moment where I feel like this is an epiphany, but other people would reply with “Well, duh. Of course the future is a mystery.” Maybe this is something just for me, something that I’ve needed to unpack and name and I’m just bringing my blog along for the ride.
But I would hope that we all feel our lungs fill with air, in this moment of now-ness that we can be sure in. May we feel the exhilaration and urgency of Now. May we all tell someone we care for them or sign up for that hobby we’ve always wanted to try. May we stop putting off the things that fill our bucket lists and banking on a mysterious Tomorrow.
As for me, even as I sit here trying to get my homework done and dreaming about the end of graduate school, I want to get every bit of joy from this Now as I possibly can. This Here and this Now is my life.
I think I’m going to text my best friend about how much I appreciate them, and then I think I’m going to go find a marathon to train for.
