It’s easy to say “I will be better.” It’s not as easy to get there.

Think about if, right now, you had five whole hours to do anything in the world – there are no kids that need you, you’re not hungry, and you’re not under a deadline. You’re not tired, and you’re showered. You’re satiated in all of the to-do list ways. You were a good parent today. You were a good producer/earner/contributor today. You have five hours. Your hours.

What would you spend them doing?

It’s a hard question. One that leads to what you want to be doing for the next 30-50 years, and which things you want to check off of your bucket list prior to dying.

Some of the items on my bucket list include:

Visiting Alaska in the middle of the winter so that I can see the Northern Lights at their brightest and their fullest.

I want to scuba dive with my son. Diving needs no language, and takes us to a place that is both foreign and familiar. There is nothing like floating at the edge of an abyss that brings home how small and how important we are, wrapped up into the same.

I hope to write a book that is read by every single person who needs to read it, for every reason and for all of the whatever reasons. I want to share our experiences because there are people who are exactly-me-me, a mere nine months ago. Looking for a tribe. Looking for understanding. Looking for moms who know about terrifying doctor’s visits, evaluations, frustration, and worry. Moms who feel all of those things, sometimes to the point of depression and bad dreams and feeling like a complete failure. Hearing that your baby is delayed, accepting it and rejecting it 1001 times over the past year…that matters. Finding people who get it matters. I want to share the heartbreak and the hugs. I want to celebrate that different is okay. That different is good. Normal.

I will advocate for a special needs/autism teacher-program that is on a different salary track and never, ever, ever has the gigantic lack of resources and aides that it does today, so that Tucker and all of the Tuckers coming after him (1 in 50 now, friends) never experience a classroom more concerned with standardized testing, not being able to fire the fucking idiots, and focuses instead on teaching EVERY child in the way that he needs to be taught in order to learn. I want a classroom where kids are encouraged to contribute. To feel value for themselves and for their ability to change the world, regardless of their physical or mental abilities. Because. They. Can. And they will, people. They will. Our kids – my kid – will change the world. They will make it better and more perfect. I promise.

I want all of those things. But above everything else, what I’d like to be able to do before I die is to live the following scene, in the year 2059.

I’ll be almost 91 years old, and after celebrating Tucker’s 50th birthday with him, I wish that I’m able to tell his children – my grandchildren – about how, once, many years ago, their daddy called airplanes “ninees.” I want to infuse their smiles with laughter and awe and I want them to ask for more stories about their daddy, when he was still my young little boy.

I want to tell them about how we didn’t have cell phones or the Internet when I was their age. I want them to think I’m fibbing when I tell them stories about trying to refold paper maps.

I want to be seated in the Grandma Chair, perhaps with a blanket around my legs because I’ll get cold those days, while my grandchildren bicker and vie for my attention.

I want to see them get sleepy by my feet while my son’s amazing wife brings me a hot cup of tea, or a glass of scotch, depending on the occasion.

I want to know that Tucker is living a full life. I want to know that he is living a life filled with love, and children, and meaningful everythings. Laughter. I want to know that most of his life was filled with me. I want to wish him a happy birthday on his 50th and I want to blow out a candle with him, wishing him the same fulfillment and pride in watching his own children grow up that I celebrated with him.

I want him to know how much he made me better. Made everything better. And I want him to know that whether he is a grocery bagger or an engineer, that I am blessed, beyond all of the beyonds, to be his mom.

I want to be here in 2059. I want my son to know that all of the most important moments mattered because of him. I want to see for myself in which way he chose to change the world.

That’s my bucket list.

What’s yours? Tell me?

This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post. Today’s sentence was “My bucket list includes…”

Your lovely hosts:

Janine’s Confessions of a Mommyaholic (Twitter, Facebook)

Can I get another bottle of whine? (Twitter, Facebook)

Mommy, for Real (Twitter, Facebook)

Dawn’s Disaster (Twitter, Facebook)



