It seems so strangely weird to be sitting here at home typing this blog post to you from the familiarity of my dining room table at home on East 14th Street and realizing at the same time that next Saturday's blog post will come from a place far, far away from here~Owego, New York. (and apologies go out to all of the English majors out there reading that long and drawn out sentence, sorry about that!) I can hardly believe how fast the time has flown since the idea first came to me to move to the #1 position on the "Miller Bucket List" my journey to New York. If memory serves me well enough, it seems like it was just around the holidays in November and December last year when the thought came to me that if I was EVER going to visit New York City that it was going to have to be pretty soon. Now over 4 months later, it will soon happen. Sometimes I can hardly believe that I am going, but going I AM.
At age 57, I could have made the decision to go to places like New York City or Portland, Maine or even Montrose, Colorado on my own years ago. There was nothing stopping me... Shoot, better clarify that one. I guess you could say there WAS something stopping me and the something was ME. I was a "home body" who hated the thought of spending more than one night or two at the most away from the comfort and safety of my own warm bed. Heck the first night I spent away from home as a kid was in the 6th grade when my good friend, Kathy Perriman, invited me to her house for the night. It was fun and I'm glad I finally did it but thankfully Kathy just lived a few miles away from me in the country. That kind of "sticking close to home" thinking has lasted me the greatest part of my life. Although in my mind I have always felt "safer" because of it, I realize with a tinge of sadness that I've passed up a huge bunch of opportunities to see things and go places that I would normally have never gone. I regretted that a bit, in fact I regretted it enough that I decided to do something about it. And that regret with how fast life was slipping by me and how much time I had already gone through and seemingly wasted, were both the impetus for the development of my bucket list, now more than 2 years past.
I'm a good one to "preach" about the importance of having a bucket list, of living your life to the fullest each and every day. Yet as time has gone on, I've suddenly come to the conclusion that being ready to put your life's "wishes and desires" on a numbered list to be done before you "kick the bucket", is really quite different for everyone. A person has to be ready, REALLY ready before it means enough to you to actually do it. As for me, I had to go through a lot of pain and suffering, through some "rocky times" along life's road. I had to grow and change in a lot of ways before I was able to realize and see for myself just exactly what I wanted to accomplish in this life. It was at that point in time, now two years ago in 2011, that I was ready to accept the fact that life was going by me rather quickly and if I wanted to be happy with myself and do the things that I had always been meant to do, that I needed to get a "move on". And that's a FACT.
You know friends, I often wonder what my bucket list would have looked like if I would have found myself in similar circumstances to the character in the movie "The Bucket List" named Carter Chambers. What if it was I who was told by my doctor that I was down to 6 months to live, or even less? How would I have reacted to it and what important things would have pushed their way to the number one spot on the list? Would things I always thought had such major importance in my life be nearly as urgent as I once thought? I'm glad that as of today, I don't have to consider those answers. But it doesn't mean that I won't some time in the future. How about you my dear friends? My best guess is that we have ALL known someone, who at the final stages of life, had concerns about not accomplishing everything they had wanted to. I'm just hoping that when our time comes, it will not happen to us and if it should, that we would have a clear vision about how we would like our days to be played out.
Well, night time will soon be upon us and the door to this day, a busy one for me, will close soon. It's been a pretty good day, all things considered. The 4H kids were able to make nearly $300 this morning at their garage sale and with many hands working together, we were able to clean everything up in no time flat! Although the temperature outdoors was about 30 to 40 degrees colder today than yesterday, it really wasn't all that bad for the 16th day of March. And now the KU-K State game is playing and it's anyone's guess as to who the winner will be. Those who regularly use the acronym "EMAW" know who they think is the best...those who chant "Rock Chalk Jayhawk" in the closing moments of every game are pretty sure of who THEY think will win. Me? Hey, I'm just proud of have been born and raised in Kansas~I've got something in common with Rex the T-Rex dinosaur from "Toy Story"~we both hate confrontations :)
Have a great evening everyone and take care of yourselves and one another. Love you dear friends, ALL of you!
One of the most memorable Christmases I ever had~2012
With two of the very first students I EVER had as a teacher...Amy and Michael and their wonderful mom, Jan. I was able to enjoy a Christmas meal with them together and they gave me the gift shown above. They knew that I had lots of record albums but no way to play them. They took care of that! I couldn't help but to cry at the thought of their kindness to me, not just that night but for all the years that they have now been my friends. Everyone needs friends like those 3 folks! Love you guys.
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