The List

I'm about to be super vulnerable here. And I'm not sure if I am ready for it. But here goes.

My most recent birthday marked the final birthday before a big milestone. Through the years, I have never put too much stock in age as a number - it was simply a count  of the revolutions around the sun I have traveled on this planet. So imagine my surprise, approaching this one, to find that I had… pretty strong feelings. About this impending number. And about what the next one will mean. In a way that I never had before. Not at sweet 16 when I could drive. Not at 18 when I could be considered a legal adult. Not at 21, 30, 40… not until now.

Suddenly a set of digits had me feeling things about what I have done or not done. Things I have accomplished or not accomplished. Where I am vs where I thought someone with that number of years under their belt should be. What someone of this age “should” know, be, do, or have.

And it didn’t feel good.

I decided in that moment that I needed to take control of the situation. To view this as an opportunity rather than as what it felt like - a big brick wall full of graffiti depicting all of things I was not. 

So I started making a list.

Things to learn.

Places to go.

Experiences to seek out.

People to meet.

Gifts to give.

I began creating a list of life that I want to live. Moments to make matter. Goals not yet out of reach.

Get a passport. 

Take a cooking class.

See the West Coast.

Learn macrame.

Volunteer in my community.

Run a race in a state I’ve never been to.

Go on a one-on-one road trip with each of my kids.

Big things. Little things. Things that I’d put off in order to live the life that I thought was expected of me. Things that I thought were not meant for me. Things I never knew I wanted.

Now, listen, making the list is actually the easy part here. I know that. Sometimes I stare at that list and feel completely paralyzed, overwhelmed by both the realization of what I haven’t done as well as the endless possibilities that it contains. Sometimes I look at it with the fear that these adventures and experiences were never meant for me. 

But each of the line items on my list came from the quiet and not so quiet pieces of me that I now know that I need to explore.

Maybe I’ll cross off every item on the list. Maybe I’ll only cross off a few. And maybe it doesn’t matter how many or how quickly that happens. Maybe what matters is that I’ve allowed myself to begin making the list. To stop viewing the number as an anchor, rather to realize that it is a springboard. I’ve had that time to learn. To grow. To feel.

So maybe I’m not where I arbitrarily thought I’d be based on an arbitrary number. But maybe now is the time to realize that I’m not actually at the end, I’m actually at a new starting line. And maybe that’s exactly where I’m supposed to be.