I’m dying.
Well, we all are. Negating the weird thing I have growing on my arm (can you say having a lot of moles is a recipe for WIN?) and the lump that’s been in my right breast for nearly two years, or the smoking, or the personal and family history of suicides, or the family history of cancer, I’d love to be able to think that it will be later, than sooner.
I don’t have a will. There’s no point of one at this fork of the road since a) the only assets I have are in my bank account and Zoë’s the beneficiary of that and b) I share guardianship with her dad, so if I die, he gets her – and all of her inheritables. Sure, I could get life insurance, but frankly, I’m not prepared at this juncture to make sure that my getting hit by a bus means he can afford a great bender – while he has full custody of our daughter.
Call me heartless. Or practical. Whatevs.
Outside of that issue, I’m comfortable with the thought of dying. As long as I know she’s taken care of, I’m not all “ooh, I’m scared” and I don’t feel morbid thinking about those things. But for some reason, I’ve never been able to sit still, mentally, long enough to make a bucket list.
It seems too final. It’s like, a recipe for prognosticating my death – once everything’s checked off, the reaper will come out of nowhere. Then there’s the thought that if I don’t check everything off and Speed 4 is made, a herd of camels that can’t run slower than 50kms an hour through downtown Vancouver or they will over-salivate and flood the city will take me out, and I will have been deemed a failure.
Basically, a bucket list has, to this point, be one of the biggest taboos to my brains.
But I’m not getting any younger and the thing on my arm is getting angrier and every month, my boob hurts more when that bitch Aunt Flo comes to visit, and I haven’t stopped smoking and my family history isn’t rewriting itself. So maybe it’s time to put metaphorical pen to metaphorical paper and decide what I need to do before those camels come a-runnin’.
- Earn a PhD
- Write a novel
- Live in France
- Fall in love
- Meet someone that I think I want to spend the rest of my life with, even if I don’t
- Look in the mirror and see something positive and not question it or feel bad for feeling positive
- Become a mother again
- Be part of a project that had a positive impact on the drug/homelessness/mental health issue in Vancouver
- Speak at a major conference regarding technology, social media and mental health
- Learn to bake an amazing pie, from scratch
- Create a gluten and dairy free eggnog cheesecake recipe that is practically impossible to tell the difference about
- Learn to knit, proficiently
- Study interior design, working part time as a consultant
- Make a full-time income as a freelance writer
- Be 100% financial independent, without sacrificing my daughter’s childhood for it
- Sing Amazing Grace in a way that makes someone cry
- Teach Zoë to play piano
- Forgive my father
- Take Zoë for her first tattoo, if she ever wants one
- See Phantom of the Opera, dressed to the nines, in the really good seats
- Live in a place that I love, completely, that feels like home
- Own a vacation home somewhere peaceful
- Write a journal of letters to Zoë, that she can read when I’ve died, that makes her feel loved
- Forgive my mother
- Find a peaceful place, where I’m not always wondering what I’m missing out on, what I did wrong, who or what I’ve sacrificed and how I or others will hurt because of it
- Read all of these recommended books
- Cultivate a relationship with my siblings that makes them want to come to my house for Christmas, every year
- Hear someone tell me they think I’m beautiful and not question what they really mean or want
- Go at least a year sober, clean and without cigarettes
- Practice yoga on a warm, sunny beach, without feeling self-conscious
- Drink tea on a porch while watching the sun rise with someone I love
- Forgive myself
- Become an expert at something
- Edited to add that I forgot: Rebuild this car, from the ground up, including nitro, with a shiny silvery blue paint job.
- And: learn how to drive stick.
- As well as: getting a drivers’ license.
