Bucket List - Part 2

I ended yesterday by mentioning Rose’s display of pictures on her bedside table and the remark may have seemed obscure. My sister and I had been watching Titanic for the second or third time and I told her that I had been thinking about that final scene where the camera scans her nightstand and we see that Rose has fulfilled Jack’s plea for her to live her life to the fullest. I said “I want that to be what you see at my funeral; figuratively if not the actual pictures”. I meant that it was important for me to live my life not as a lady in waiting but to get out there and do some real living. That was more than ten years ago and only now do I feel that I am paying attention to my own dream. I am finally becoming the leading lady in my own drama.

I believe many women put their full life on hold to accommodate their families whether it be their spouse, their children or other family members. And I just want to tell them, don’t. I am not saying anything profound, magical or new when I say this. I simply repeat what so many wise ones before me have said “life is here to be lived now, we only have one life to live so live it to the fullest”. Oh how many excuses I have made for myself as to why I couldn’t possibly do this or that right now and in justice to one and all, financial reasons is naturally a legitimate reason. I can come back to that more fully another day, but sufficient to say for now that of course I couldn’t go travelling to any place expensive when I had to pay my mortgage and there was barely enough money for that. But it’s been six years since the house was paid for and all debts cleared up and still I hesitated about going anywhere at all. Why? How long is a girl supposed to be frugal?

For the longest time I felt that I was living in a “holding position” because I felt my life wouldn’t really start until I got married, and then I would have kids and my “real life” would start. That never happened and it was a very long time before I accepted that it wasn’t going to happen. Ever. Wow. So then what? Then I just kept plugging away at my mortgage, taking care of day to day living, getting better and better jobs, nicer salary. Then what? Then . . . post menopause. Decrepitude. Retirement planning.

Retirement planning? Wait a minute, what happened to that middle space between my post university and pre-retirement? Something just isn’t right here – where did all that time go?

Ring any bells? It’s a slippery slope after high school. It takes forever to become 18 and “adult” and no time at all to become a senior citizen. Trust me on this one, it happens faster than you can possibly believe! I echo Lauren Bacall in “The Mirror Has Two Faces”, I still feel young inside. I refuse, yet, to say “but I’m not.”