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I have the obligatory bucket list with entries like traveling to as many places as possible, seeing my grandchildren marry, walking across America, etc. But last night as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep, another list altogether entered my mind. I laughingly dubbed it my "Just Once" list as it grew to include some rather bizarre desires. Nevertheless, here it is.
I would like just once to:
1. Be taken care of completely without my having to lift a finger. I don't want to be sick to have this happen but remain in complete control of my senses so I can enjoy to the fullest one entire day of having someone a) wash my hair, b) give me a full body massage, c) cater to my every dietary whim, d) turn down the sheets on my freshly made bed, e) hover over me solicitously and f) read me to sleep. I realize that one can attend a day spa and hire a maid to accomplish all this but I have the money for neither, which leads me to...
2. Have enough money so that I can go to bed without puzzling out how I am to pay the bills and still eat. I am not so much interested in spending the money lavishly (or frivolously) as I am in knowing that it's there as I need it.
3. Have a chauffeur. I used to live with a fellow who liked to drive. Now if I want someone else to do the driving I must first drive to them. For example, none of my children live closer than an hour and a half away. Before they can drive me about their neighborhoods, I must get myself to their neighborhoods. I used to sort of like driving but now the merest hint of bad weather, any dire news of highway accidents or strange sounds in my car put me into an apoplectic fit. I go, but I'm not happy about it.
4. Win big. I know one must buy a lottery ticket to stand a chance (some blonde jokes are funny) but those times that I invested a treasured dollar have resulted in disappointment. Just once, I'd like to be the one crying on TV because I've just been given a million dollars (tax free) or the one who opens her mailbox to find a check for an outrageous amount of money from an undisclosed but compassionate source. The only thing I've ever won in my life was a chintzy pillow at the county fair when I was 12. (And I was shooting for the giant teddy bear!)
5. Be slim again, twenty again, and in the position to make an entirely different decision about the life I was about to give up in order to embark on the life I did. I have few regrets, even more blessings and a life now that is quite satisfactory in every way but monetary. Still, I'd like to see what my parallel lives would have been like.
6. Spend a day completely pain free. My feet ache, my knees hurt, my knuckles throb, my back seizes up. While I'm at it, I'd like my hearing and vision restored to their hitherto perfection. (After I thought about this one, I realized that having experienced that, I'd be more than reluctant to return to my current state. Still...)
7. I would like to know what follows once my 20 year life plan expires and I along with it. I might forget it once I've been shown, or I might assign it to a mere dream, but some part of me would then be able to relax enough so that I can enjoy the next bit of my life story with all the abandonment and delight I felt as a child. (Which, come to think of it, list or no list, is just what I intend to do!)
10 comments:
Sigh! I too sometimes wonder about the "road not taken", and where it might have led. My current self is appalled over and over again at the bird-brain-ed-ness of my twenty year old self! How casually youth turns away from the familiar and beloved to rush to the arms of the exciting and dangerous!
olly - exactly! I was so sure I knew what I wanted and would not listen to anyone who said otherwise. Wise words of caution are lost on youth!
And here I am wishing--just a little--that I had followed folly a bit more than reason.
JAK - we all have something wish we'd done differently! Thanks for stopping by and commenting :)
Just lately I too have been reviewing the choices I made that led me here.
I could have stayed in college. Or I could have gone to work for the state government at eighteen, as my now-retired-on-75%-of-her-annual-gross-pay did.
And the other day when Husband and I read about a $319,000,000 lottery winner, we spent some time mulling over what we would do with a fortune like that.
Ah. The road not taken. For us it seems to be all about money versus the life we would like to lead.
June - I do some of the "if only" cogitating about money, too. I'd like to try being rich just once!
I'd agree with all of that! I also am nearing retirement and going over in my mind all those things which I could have done better or maybe still have time to do.
Star - go do them :)
The path I decided not to take was study Archeology/Classics which I've always regretted. Had I done that though I would not have met my dear husband. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have had more children, but oftentimes struggle with one!I think my "just once" choice would be:just once I'd like to go on a big extended holiday and think "hang the expense, after all I can afford this!"
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