The Bucket List

So, do you have a bucket list?  I never thought much about bucket lists and all the buzz around them until I realized that I, too, actually had a bucket list.  I never consciously sat down with pen and paper intending to make a list and fill my bucket-sky diving, travel to exotic places, save the world...But, the bucket still existed in the recesses of my mind.  Everyone has things they would like to do or see sometime in their lifetime, so we all actually have a bucket list even though we may not recognize it.  Sometimes, you don't even know something is in your bucket until you are faced with something that makes it bubble to the top and then you are smacked in the face with the challenge to lighten that bucket.

The bucket is different for each individual and what it looks like greatly depends on your personality.  My personality is sort of willy nilly and my drum tends to beat all over the place.  I have to admit I don't always think things through.  I'm not really impulsive, I just don't always recognize that something may be dangerous, stupid, embarrassing etc.  Given my personality, over my lifetime if there was something I really wanted to do I just took the steps needed to do it.  For me, the whole concept of the bucket list revolves around pushing the envelope a little past comfort zones.  "I would like to do that but...."   It's the buts that get the item in the bucket for me.  Get beyond the buts, get over the buts and push yourself to just do it.  Another aspect of bucket list worthy items for me is the magnitude or scope of the task.  For example, I would like to see the Grand Canyon.  That doesn't make the bucket list cut for me.  I would like to visit every National Park-this is on my bucket list.

Recently, a bucket list item unexpectedly bubbled to the top and smacked me in the face.  Flash mobs. I have always loved the whole idea of flash mobs and thoroughly enjoy watching videos of ones that have been successfully pulled off.  As I have watched, I have often thought how fun it would be to  participate in a flash mob-an easy flash mob.  Maybe everyone waves at the same time.  Or jumps out of somewhere.  Or yells or something.  The problem was, I was asked to participate in a dancing flash mob.  Ah........No!!  I was coaxed and coaxed and I finally caved.  Ok.  I had to mentally keep pushing myself to actually participate in the 4 weeks of dance practices.  When the opportunity comes to lighten your bucket you've got to do it.  I think that's in the bucket rules somewhere.  I do have the required rythm to dance, love to dance for fun, but this was Michael Jackson's Thriller routine to be performed at our town's Halloweenfest.  In front of potentially hundreds of gawking spectators.  Good grief...

The routine was harder than I ever imagined and I felt like I just wasn't ever going to master it.  Around the 3rd week, something kicked in and I seemed to be getting it.  By week 4 I felt confident that I had learned the routine and practiced as often as possible with a dvd given to participants to take home.  But, I never really allowed myself to think of actually DOING it.  You know how that is-if you don't allow something to come to the front of your mind where you have to actually think about it, then it doesn't really exist....

The eve of the Big Day came and I hadn't even started creating a zombie costume.  As I was outside in the dark trying to find sticks and leaves to attach to an old shirt with the glue gun that was heating up  inside, the reality of what I was doing the next day pushed its way to the front of my mind with a mighty force.  OMG!  Why do I do these things to myself??  Cold feet appeared like an unannounced winter freeze.  I'm in a frenzy trying to create a zombie costume from things on hand and fallen debris from the yard and I'm starting to freak a little.  I had this ridiculous idea that burning the shirt would create a good effect.  Let me just say that burning 50/50 polyester is NOT a good idea under any circumstance.  I have no idea what I expected to happen, but what I ended up with could not possibly have been what I intended to create.  50/50 doesn't actually burn, it melts, so wherever I put fire, that piece of the shirt just disappeared into thin air.  The only appropriate shirt I had for a zombie costume was shrinking right before my eyes and for some unknown reason I kept trying thinking it would work.  Every time I did a little more of the shirt vanished.  Panic was setting in and the fumes I created from burning polyester in a closed environment really weren't helping the situation. Can you say fu@# it when it's in the bucket??  I am quite sure "NO" would clearly be in the bucket list rule book.  So, I did what most women do when panic is setting in-I went to bed...

The flash mob happened and I have no idea how my performance was.  But you know, it doesn't really matter.  I pushed the envelope, I did it.  If something bubbles to the top of your bucket list and smacks you in the face-do it.  The feeling of accomplishment is worth every second of the panic created by pushing beyond your comfort zone.  Bucket list-Flash Mob:

 

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