Bucket List

Here are the things I really want to do:

Write the six novels in my head.

Travel to Switzerland.

Put on every single Shakespearean play, using my family as cast members, and using every single word of Shakespeare's in the productions.

Run businesses selling the things I have thought I could make money on.

Spend enough time with each one of my children that they know all about me and why I think the way I do, all of my relevant and positive history, and what I want for them and that they can achieve whatever they want to do.

Regain the buffness I had at thirty-two.

Become perfect.

Sew, cross-stitch, decorate, read, see plays and concerts, travel.

Eat at restaurants.

Here's what I will do:

Wash the same table hundreds of times.

Vacuum the same floors until the carpet is worn out.

Go to church and try to listen.

Have many conversations with my children and spouse, about eighty percent of which will be patient and positive.

Go to work 1768 more times.

Sleep in the same bed, wear the same clothes, eat the same breakfasts.

Sing the same goodnight song to my children at least 18000 more times. Times five.

Wish I had more time.

There must be some merit in performing mundane activities repeatedly. Because this is what our lives get filled up with.

I keep hearing and reading stories of people who--years before they thought this would happen--find out they are suddenly out of time.

The tremendous pain they have means they are full of cancer and they are put on morphine for the two days they have left. They have an accident and it's curtains. They come down with early-onset Alzheimers or another illness and are forced to quit their jobs and other meaningful activities.

It's over. Just like that.

Which brings me back to my thought. There must be some merit in having done certain things every day or nearly every day, over and over, even though those actions--in and of themselves--seem small and meaningless.

I remember at my grandma's funeral, someone mentioned that she got up and got dressed every day. What a thing to mention! Don't we all--to some extent? But it was the steadfast and unvarying repetition, the value she placed on it, that won her that accolade, small though it was. It made a big impression on me. Especially since I spend most of my time at home in my nightgown.

It meant more than it seemed to mean.

It was an effort she made for her own reasons. And someone noticed. And, somehow, it made a difference.

My mother was not a perfect housekeeper--she was far too busy. But I do remember that we never ate off a dirty table, as long as she was serving the meal. Small as that is, it says volumes.

So, maybe, even if I don't achieve greatness in any large way, but keep doing small things consistently, it will add up to something in the end.

Maybe, in the same way that the discipline I've achieved in consistency at the gym has made my muscles hard, washing that same table or singing that same song will add up to something in the end. Maybe there will be enough left over from the hurried, broken, incomplete or imperfect conversations I have had and will have my family members for them to piece together the rest of what I want them to know.