Five years ago I rediscovered a “bucket list” I wrote when I was a teenager, and posted it to Instagram. Didn’t do a ton of reflection, and my old handwriting is rough, so I wanted to recreate it here and see how I’m doing.
(Revised) Bucket list:
- Solve a rubik’s cube
- lol why tho
- See Death Cab for Cutie, Paramore, and Switchfoot in concert
- Here’s the thing about concerts- I don’t, uh, love them? I find that being surrounded by a crowd of people isn’t my favorite. I would rather just listen to music I like while on a road trip with my friends.
- Meet Stephanie Meyer and Libba Bray
- This and the concert one date this list to at least 2005/2006. I still think it would be neat to meet these women, even though prose isn’t really my jam anymore
- Publish something
- Complete! There’s a Brains short story published in a literary journal called the Kudzu Review, and I also have some poetry in an anthology coming out soon.
- Travel to Italy, London, Paris, and Norway
- Been to Rome and Paris, and technically I’ve flown through London but I know, that doesn’t count. Someday!
- Graduate from college
- And grad school! Boom! Love being in debt (:
- Meet Sean Homburger
- Ok this actually does date this bucket list to when I was 16, around 2008. We don’t need to get into this one again.
- Love
- lol at the wistfulness, but check!
- Live in New York for a year
- Bit of an overachiever over here, since I lived in NYC for 7 years! It was wonderful and nightmarish and I don’t regret it but I also don’t regret leaving.
- Skydive
- Someday!
- Grow a flower
- Quinn and I spent much of April and May helping my mom plant her garden/backyard and many of those plants remain alive against all odds. Some even grew from seed!
- Paint a room orange
- Already crossed out at the time of discovery because I eventually painted my childhood bedroom orange (it was recently repainted because orange is a real weird color to paint a room). Fun fact: I wanted to paint a room orange because it’s said to stimulate creativity but mostly because I knew it was Liam Aiken‘s favorite color
- Win an award
- Also crossed out already at the time (I assume from speech and debate)
- Die happy
- why is this in the MIDDLE of the list?
- Go to confessional
- lol so Sean from earlier in the list was Catholic and this was a Big Topic of Conversation with him (allegedly not because he was interested in converting me, but because it was something Everyone Should Try)
- Stay up all night
- I guess I pulled an all-nighter for school or something? I’ve sadly also done this many times since
- Be a part of a protest
- Still no, technically. When you know who was elected I had an infected ingrown toenail and couldn’t walk, and I was too scared of COVID to in-person participate in anything in 2020, but as with many of the things on this list, someday.
9.5/17 isn’t bad! And given that three aren’t things I’m interested in doing I’m feeling even more accomplished. Back in 2008 when this was likely written, it would have really bugged me to hear that, because to teenage me the point was not if I wanted to do something or not. If it was written down declaratively, it needed to come to pass or else I’d be worthless. But like, worthless to who? I don’t care about Rubik’s cubes or concerts or going to confessional so my Facebook not-boyfriend would be happy. Arbitrarily assigning myself things and sticking to them after they stop being interesting to me is a net neutral at best to my quality of life, and if I’ve learned anything in the 13 years since this was written, it’s that literally no one cares. No one cares if I solve a Rubik’s cube, least of all me. Changing my mind doesn’t make me flaky, and it doesn’t mean I lack conviction. It means I changed my mind.
