(If you caught the Rasputina reference, I love you. Let's be best friends.)
I've been thinking about making a Life List lately.
Because sometimes I need reminding that even though life is often painful, dull and confusing as hell- every experience, whether positive or negative, gives us the opportunity to grow. To understand more, to open up more, to give and recieve more love. To shed some light, lend some warmth. To learn. To be more than we were yesterday. To try and fail and try again. To succeed & embrace fear and doubt. To move through pain, gracefully or otherwise, and allow it to polish us like glass from the sea, making what was once ordinary extraordinary.
Because sometimes I need reminding that even though life is often painful, dull and confusing as hell- every experience, whether positive or negative, gives us the opportunity to grow. To understand more, to open up more, to give and recieve more love. To shed some light, lend some warmth. To learn. To be more than we were yesterday. To try and fail and try again. To succeed & embrace fear and doubt. To move through pain, gracefully or otherwise, and allow it to polish us like glass from the sea, making what was once ordinary extraordinary.
You'll have to pardon me... I've been reading a lot of Pema Chodron.
So consider this a work in progress. Some of these are more of a journey, less of a result. I'm sure I will add and subtract and refine these many times. (By the way, if you want to make a Life List of your own and need some inspiration check out my lovely friend Carrie Anne's over at Little Big. She's just an adorable little powerhouse of sexy smart nerd girl. Ladycrush!)
Learn sugar work.
Make travel a priority: Europe, China, Peru & Guatemala. Thailand. Australia & New Zealand. Africa. Alaska, Montana, Texas, New York. Canada. Brazil. Honestly, anywhere & everywhere.
Skydive.
Take a backpacking trip, hike in hike out camping.
Quit smoking.
Get a solid handle on my finances. Develop a plan for making the things that are important to me do-able.
Take my kids on a historical tour of the United States.
Take voice lessons and sing in public.
Learn woodworking & build my own furniture.
Make art a focus in my life. Study. Start painting again.
Publish a book.
Find a physical practice I enjoy and stick with it. This year: Yoga, Bellydance & Capoeira.
Graduate from college. In what? I don't know. But I want a degree.
Cultivate friendships. Pay attention and make time for my relationships with the people I love.
Become a hospice volunteer
Teach my kids to cook, do their own laundry & clean up after themselves ( most days I have a 25-40 percent success rate with this)
Have regular dinner parties. I've always wanted to do that.
Re-take Spanish classes & become fluent.
Make a t-shirt quilt for each of the kids with Jason's & their old t shirts
Take some of those old timey old west pictures... I know, but I've always wanted to do that
See Jack White, AWOLNATION, Pink, Florence & The Machine and KT Tunstall in concert.
Grow my hair out too long... and then most likely cut it all off again :)
Too be continued...
To be continued...
I am dying at your compliment. You are a total ladycrush.
ReplyDeleteLet's tackle your list. I'm ready to cross more things off of mine, too.
xoxo
PS I want to sing in public, too. We should do a duet someday. Ebony and Ivory?
ReplyDeleteOh. Hell. Yes.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this journey. I can't imagine, just can't what you are experiencing. But thanks for the courage to let it out and share.
ReplyDeleteI've been married for 26+ years, and you give me pause. Pause to think about what I have gone through, what we've been through. Where I'm, we're going. A new perspective of my husband. One I really need. And some good sense to tell my kids, grand-kids, and husband I love them, and they are special, and smart.
I don't know what to say to encourage you, it all seems so cliche. But I do need to tell you, you are an inspiration and thanks.