The Non-Bucket List

Are you old yet?  I don't mean in years.  Do you act old regardless of the candles on the birthday cake?

I know people my age that are already old and feeble.  They look old and act old.  I know other people that when they tell you their age, you find it hard to believe they're that old.

I had a birthday this week. I've never hid my age.  Those folks on publish their birth date but not the year (thus not revealing their age) don't get it.  I'm not sure that I've ever been embarrassed about any age that I've been. 

Sixty? I'm OK when somebody says "you look good for a man of your age."  Fifty?  Didn't give it a thought.  Forty?  Hardly registered.    Thirty?  I can't remember it but it sure seems young now.

Remember the movie The Bucket List?  I don't really have one.   Oh sure, there's some things I want to do and see. 

I want to see my grandkids as happy adults.  If you had asked me about my own kids when they were little, I would have said I wanted them to be successful adults.  There's a difference.

But that hardly seems a "bucket list" type goal.

I've never wanted to jump out of a perfectly good airplane and hang gliding (basically attaching yourself to a kite) never interested me. 

I like to scuba dive but I've already been diving with whales and too many sharks.  Don't want to push my luck too much.  I don't need to go deeper and have absolutely no plans to dive in a cave.

I love to ride my bicycle but I have no desire to do one of those cross-country things.  I don't want to be gone that long from home.  And it seems like it would turn biking into a job.  Or a personal quest to prove something that I just simply don't find it necessary to prove. 

Local rides with great friends are as good as it gets  (although if Ken Bell says lets head out west to ride mountain bikes...well...I'm in).

I've always wanted to see Machu Picchu but it seems an awfully long way to go for a day hike.

Visiting the South Pacific would be nice.  Tahiti and Bora Bora sound sufficiently exotic but I suspect that I would enjoy the Caribbean just as much.

I'd like to visit Italy but if I don't ever get there I'll be just fine.  There are so many incredible places in the U.S. that I haven't seen yet.

I want to visit really cool, off-the-grid places like Fort Aransas, Texas and Jerome, Arizona.  (Actually I've seen Jerome--I just want to take my wife there.)

I want to be healthy into my old age and I build a lot of my lifestyle around achieving that one.  

Maybe that's more appropriate for my "kick-the-bucket" list.  Eat right. Exercise daily. 

And anyway, doesn't a Bucket List seem like a "me" list?  As I've gotten older, it seems that life is far less about "me" and more about those that I love.  

Family.  Friends.  Especially those grandkids.  I find myself wanting to spend every minute that I can with my wife.  

Research tells us that good long term relationships and lots of friends help increase our life expectancy.  In a couple of weeks, I will have been married for 40 years and I'm blessed with more friends than any man should ever expect to have. 

So here's my point:  Live life.  Every day.  See the beauty in what surrounds you.  Life the life that makes you happy and that brings joy to every day.  Don't wait on the next grand adventure to sustain your  happiness.