Bucket List

"I believe you measure yourself by the number of people who measure themselves by you."

~ Morgan Freeman, "The Bucket List"

When I was first diagnosed with Cancer, I thought to myself, well, you've had a pretty good run. At 44 years old, I have chased after an Olympic podium, traveling the world with some of the United States' fastest skiing women. I broke myself into ten pieces after hitting a finish post at 55 miles per hour and survived to tell that tale. I graduated college....twice. I've run marathons and triathlons. I've been to every continent except Antarctica, visiting over 20 countries, learning a language and living in a country other than my own. I've hiked the Inca Trail in Peru, the Everest region in Nepal, and kayaked rivers all over California and even Ecuador. I've helicopter skied in Alaska, driven to Baja Mexico 15 times over, and hiked the Circuit in Torres del Paine, Chile in the southern tip of South America, once by myself. I waited tables, guided rivers, coached skiing and soccer, and cooperated with teams of people who save lives in busy emergency rooms. I've loved a man for 18 years and raised two beautiful, healthy daughters that I have carted to Thailand and Morocco in search of social conscience. Given that I have only lived 44 years, my life's resume is pretty darn good. Hard to be bitter or resentful that this life might be over. That said, I decided to be grateful, for once, for what I have or have had. I thought, It's okay, that I have cancer. I have checked off just about everything I have ever wanted to do.

Well, sort of.

In the book. The Survivor's Club, the author outlines the "Rule of 3" prescribed by survivor's everywhere including the American Military. It goes something like this:

You can live 3 seconds without hope; 3 minutes without air; 3 hours without shelter; 3 days without water; 3 weeks without food; 3 months without companionship.

What really gets me about this list is the 3 seconds without hope part. Air, shelter, water, food etc. do not really matter if you lose hope. Without hope, there are no prayers, no solutions, no last ditch efforts. Without hope, you are doomed. It makes perfect sense to me that it is first on the list because if you don't have a hope to live, then why bother breathing, finding warmth, water or food or human companionship. Hope is the most important ingredient to survival. For anything to get better or to survive, one must first believe it to be possible. Hope provides this in the first 3 seconds of any situation. From there, the race to survive is on.

So did I run out of hope in the first 3 seconds of my cancer diagnosis? I wonder only because I question my drive to survive. My bucket list is extensive and well......checked off. I found myself lost for a moment (approx. 1.3 seconds). What could possibly be left? In this moment, I realized that it was time to re-create the bucket list of a 44 year-old woman and no longer that of the 20 year old adventurer. Epiphane: I am not the same person I was 24 years ago. I realized that I was at the end of my bucket list because I was at the end of who I used to be. Now a wife, a mother of two, a contributing member of society, and a Cancer patient, I must revisit my values and desires. time for a new bucket list. So I thought, what can I look forward to, really?

Grandchildren. I hear they're pretty great,

The next thing that popped into my head is I've never been to Tahiti and would like to visit this place before I kick that proverbial bucket. And finally,there's a boy out there I meant to kiss when I was 12. That got the idea stream rolling, despite it's elementary school origins.

Small potatoes. But nonetheless, something left undone.

Most of my bucket list items always had to do with travel. Why? Because by changing the setting or the environment, I was transformed. I was required to adapt. I learned something new. However, simple travel items tend to run together. At some point, you find yourself on the road chasing the meaning of life instead of life giving meaning. I decided that there must be guidelines in choosing bucket list items. First, it has to be possible. Second, it has to have intention and substance. Third, it must create a deep and significant change. Now, in my fifth decade, there must be something about the travel that increases the difficulty level or nuance. So instead of visiting Fiji, the task might be to surf Tavarua (in Fiji), presuming that is, that I already know how to surf. Time is no longer on my side. Learning a new skill will have its limits. I must choose my list items carefully, mindful not to choose unattainables or hollow distractions that take me away from rule number 2.

Strangely, reinventing the bucket list of a 44 year-old woman is more about connecting with people. Instead of simply heli-skiing in Alaska, I want to stand on top of the mountain with my friends Edith, Kristi, Tamara, and Minnow and watch them drop into waste-deep powder while we all lay down huge arcs, coming within inches of one another, each of us confident that our paths will never collide. I want to windsurf in Hawaii with Eva and Erin and watch them fly across the top of the water and jump the waves while kicking back in their harnesses like they're not really going 40 miles per hour. It may even be something simple like sitting by a roaring fire, with a cup of hot chocolate in a snow-covered landscape or drinking fresh-brewed coffee somewhere off the beaten path. The connection with people is a strong motivator and the possibilities are endless.

When I start to brainstorm a new bucket list, I think of places like the Taj Mahal, the Amalfi coast of Italy or the Egyptian pyramids, but being there alone would not suffice, so who's with me? Marek and I will definitely hit Tahiti before time's up, but what else is there besides travel?

Well, I'd like to learn an instrument and command a language. I would like to write a book and learn to sew. ("I'd like to teach the world to sing/in perfect harmony....I'd like to buy the world a coke/....and keep it company." That song just popped in my head. Couldn't resist.)

As I think of things I haven't done or would like to do, I realize that perhaps I have unfinished business here on Earth.

One day, I would like to meet my grandchildren. To do this, I must first raise my own kids. Again, time might not afford me this luxury. I will have to make the most of this one however I can. Suffice it to say that every day with my kids is a bonus and leads to deep, significant change.

I would like to bring joy to my husband's life. I've been putting this off in my limited capabilities to be both devoted wife and mother of two. I focus well on one thing but not several and sadly, he has taken the backseat to all the other things that motherhood, soccer coach and ER nurse require ( like "Sleep"). We have so many plans to relive our 20's and satiate that constantly-postponed desire for each other. Our biggest goal was to drive a giant 4 X 4 or 6 X 6 Mann overland vehicle from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Full of adventure and a lust for new experiences, we are energized by the prospect of digging our truck out of a South American mudhole or muddling our way through a Central American milintary checkpoint. It's what marriages are built on.

I have come to realize that my bucket list is not nearly checked off. I've got way too much to do and a lot of stuff that requires time learning how to do it, but more importantly, getting together with the people I care about to share these bucket list experiences. Perhaps the activity itself is not the bucket list item but rather the person that you wish to encounter it with. I hope and pray for as many days as I can have with my kids, maybe a grandchild, and of course, my husband. And all the people that strengthen me everyday.

As for the 12 year old boy, well, he is happily married and so am I. This might be the one thing that remains undone, unless of course Winona Ryder wants to make out with my husband in which case, I might be able to trade for a free pass. However, the remote possibility of checking this off the list still provides hope and proof that the end of my story remains unwritten. I'm pretty sure my husband feels the same way about making out with Winona Ryder.

Hope. It's what keeps us going. It's what gives us the desire to dream and wish and seek the things we want in life. I hope to surf the big waves someday. I hope to drive to Tierra del Fuego. But I will also "settle" for Tiramisu and Cappucino on the Amalfi coast, an Irish Car Bomb (a libation of Irish whiskey, Bailey's Irish Cream and Guinness) in Ireland, or Lobster in the Maldives. And as we all know, the journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step. A single step called chemo. Thank goodness for a resurrected bucket list to help me get through it.