The Bucket List

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why we call it the present." --Eleanor Roosevelt

(Note: Thank you to my friend Barton who told me to double-check where this quote came from! Editing yourself can be some tricky business!)

I know a lot of people have a bucket list, even if they don't write it down--that list they keep in a corner of their mind of all the wishes, dreams, and desires they have in this life. What I wonder is, do they go through their list, do something from it, and then cross it off or do they just keep adding things to it but never make the time, find a way, or doggedly pursue items on the list?

Every year, on New Year's Eve, my husband comes up with a name/theme for the up-coming year. This year's theme is "A Fresh Start", and one of the things I'm working on is being consciously aware of the people I want to meet, see, and/or reconnect with, places I want to go and things I want to accomplish and ways to attain them. i.e. pursuing my Bucket List with reckless abandon! Launching my writing career is one of those things from my list (which is now a little over two months old...YAY!).  Owning land in the mountains and living there is another, as the mountains call to my soul in ways I don't really understand (I've learned through my travels that it doesn't really matter which mountains, either, as they all seem to have such a powerful impact on me). We purchased two beautiful acres of land on the side of a mountain that overlooks the Blue Ridge Parkway (which I intend to pay my husband for at the first available opportunity because I want to own it all by myself), and while there's no house there, yet, I can cross through half of that wish. Tromping through MY woods on the mountain was such an amazing experience but someday in the not-too-distant future, I'll be writing my novels from my back porch there and that will be a glorious day (I did, in fact, hug most of the trees, locate nearly every rock and ponder ways of preserving the natural beauty when we build...it's going to break my heart to see even one tree cut down)!

This weekend I'll be able to cross another thing off the list, as we're heading to the mountains to stay in a cabin on a lake, something I've always wanted to do. It's a small thing but I've learned that stuff you wish for doesn't always have to be B-I-G. It can be as simple as watching the sun set behind the mountains on a warm night by the lake and then listening to the sounds the wildlife make in the dark, away from "big city" noise.

Being a writer was also my Aunt Mattie's dream, one she never got around to because she was so busy taking care of all of us. I have a packet of short stories she wrote that she sent to me when I was living in England. She enclosed a brief letter:

Dear Amy,

Here are the stories I told you about. I hope you like them. Time goes so fast we leave out a lot of things we would like to do. So do all you can while you are young and be happy.

I love you.
Mattie

I loved them and one day soon I'm going to publish those stories she wrote and share them with the world! I'm also going to be mindful each and every day to heed her sage advice!

*Image from teawithtiffany.com.

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