Making Lists
All my life I’ve been a list maker. It’s how I get things done, and in many ways, it’s what’s propelled me forward. I’m taking a hard look this year at the lists I’ve been making and evaluating whether or not I’m checking off the right things. Much like cleaning a closet, or organizing your home, but much harder because it’s setting my sights on different objectives based only on personal importance without anyone’s opinions or endorsements.
The lure of a good list is that you can easily identify what it is that you need to do, cross it off, and then move forward to the next item. The pitfall is that letting a list guide so that your eyes only see that one page.
What are types of things you might find on my list in years past?
Spend time with family.
Accomplish work goals.
Read for information, not for enjoyment.
Focus on nutrition (which IS important, I know!)
Teach yoga (weekly) and work on the craft of teaching.
What my list is starting to look like right now.
Spend time with family & with best friends sitting on back porches, decks, patios, lawn chairs this summer.
Enjoy food, cook less, sit longer at the table.
Practice mindfulness and meditation, especially outdoors and put my bare feet in he grass as much.
Read. No matter what the intellectual outcome, just read what sounds good, and right, and fun.
Travel as much as possible, and be brave as to how long we stay on the road.
All of that being said here, there’s one thing that’s been on my list since I was in grade school. In the summers we would camp out at Van’s at Lake McConaughey in Western Nebraska. At the end of the campground lane, there was an vintage Airstream that was set up all summer. It had little multi-colored pinwheels in flowerpots and it seems like the most fantastic campsite that I’d ever seen. And, year-after-year, it was there. I made up my mind right then and there that someday, that my husband and I would also be the proud owners of an airstream.
That dream is coming to fruition in the next few weeks…we have been fortunate to acquire our Airstream International, 25’ beauty, from amazing friends whose adventuring will take a different turn, perhaps with a different rig in months to come? We are keeping our smaller camper, because it just is too much fun, but this addition will allow Mike and I to travel farther, and for longer time away.
What’s most difficult at this age is going ‘off list’ or ‘off the map’ of what you thought life would be like. It’s really so much better when you aren’t checking things off a list like a life ‘to do’ experience. Sometimes big things happen, and many days small things happen. But it all happens, and it’s wonderful.
