Walking around all day yesterday, I thought about what it is I would like to accomplish in my lifetime to put on my ‘Rockin’ My Life List,’ the homework for today’s Find Your Awesome entry. It is difficult to think in a forward motion when one is concerned about present day dangers. As we are well aware, Trump would love it if we got into a nuclear war with North Korea so that it would take the attention off his collusion with Russia in order to get elected. Seems like perfectly normal response, right? Let’s drop some devastating bombs on Americans so that I don’t get caught in bed with Russia.
But thinking forward is what I must do in order to get this homework completed. The following ideas I’d like to complete in this lifetime range from the esoteric to the pie-in-the-sky level but, like my mom said in a recent conversation, “It’s good to have goals.”
- Travel the world: Some places would be fine to skip (I’m looking at you, Middle East) and some countries that I have been to already don’t warrant repeating.
- Launch a successful brick-and-mortar business: Yes, people scare me and being with them all day long may do more damage to my psyche than good but I’d love to have a retail business where I sell something people want. With that successful business comes employees. This is the point where I can let them handle all the people, and I can stop by when I want. It’s like being a grandparent! No commitment, just fun.
- Live somewhere abroad: I begged Nick many years ago to live in England. He had an app writing company so he could have done that work from anywhere. All he needed was a computer, an outlet, and an Internet connection. I thought it would be an amazing experience for the girls. When we took a trip to the UK and France for a month a couple years ago, I knew I had been right. Somewhere in England or Scotland would have been ideal, although I felt most at home in London. I’m not sure why that was because I’m not much of a big city person but I loved everything about it. My family and I stayed in a row home in Greenwich, and it was ideal–close enough to the train to go into London but far enough away that it was more urban sprawl than urban.
- Achieve a higher degree than a BS: I’ve been chomping at the bit lately to go back to school. It was amazing to finally complete my BS but I’m looking forward to completing my doctorate. The biggest issue is that I don’t know what I’d study but I think it’s because I’m living in fear of committing to what I want to do. You see, the two areas I am most excited about, health and education, requires that I scrap the majority of what my current degree is in and essentially start over. I’m afraid that my time for learning biology, chemistry, and remembering it from one day to the next has passed. I know there’s all these quotes about never being too old but I do have a terrible memory, and guess what? It’s in my DNA that I have a terrible short-term memory. How is that even possible? How does a gene affect my memory? I have no idea but there it is in black and white: poor short-term memory. The good news is I had been concerned that I had early onset Alzheimer’s but it’s just in my genes. Is it in your genes, too? Go to 23andme.com, order a test, and then when you get your raw data, send it to a third party site for interpretation. You can get a whole bunch of information that is so interesting besides the people who make up your ancestry. However, I say this with great enthusiasm, if you’re a hypochondriac or would rather stay in the dark, definitely don’t get this test done. I was sweating bullets waiting to see the results of my Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease tests.
- Own a Maserati: Yes, this is completely materialistic; however, I view cars as art so what I’m saying is that I’d like to own a piece of art. Not sure it will ever happen but maybe when my brick-and-mortar store takes off, it could be the first thing I buy for myself.
- Create a charity for foster teens: I’m not sure why I have such a soft spot for foster and homeless teens but it may be from a news report I saw when I was 22 or 23 after I had recently relocated from the East Coast to California. I outlined the memory in another post so I won’t go into the boring details here. The bottom line is that I would like to have a small building full of apartments where homeless teens can live and feel safe. I especially feel for the transgender and gay teens who have been kicked out of their homes by their parents. I feel that we all need to take our children as they come and if God makes no mistakes, then a child is a child no matter how they present. Many Christians and Catholics faced with a LGBTQ child choose to kick their teen out of their home so they don’t have to deal with all the feelings, the scrutiny by other family members, neighbors, friends, co-workers, and the community in which they live in general. My charity would provide everything a teen would need to live comfortably. I imagine a building full of bedrooms. Each teen would have their own room and own things to go into the room. The kitchen would be downstairs and meals would be homemade. The attendance at dinner would be mandatory because connection is so important. There would be a clothing “store” and a shop where works completed by the kids would be for sale to the public (if they are artistic). I’d have specially trained staff to help the teens in every matter. And the most important thing I’d do is NOT kick them out at 18–In fact, I’d specifically do everything I could to make sure that the teen graduates from high school and goes on to college with as little financial burden at the end as possible. Everyone in his ‘family’ would attend his graduations and then we would make sure he had a fully equipped apartment to begin a successful life. My charity would take the teen from whatever age they were when they came in all the way through young adulthood.
- Move to a different state: Sensing a theme here? Yes, unfortunately, I’m tired of California. I have been here for 30 years in May. 30 years! Who would have thought I’d still be here? But it’s time to move on. My preference is for a place with a lot of trees like Oregon or Washington and not so much sun all the time. I’d like an area full of wildlife and trails. I know California has a lot of that but going onto the trails around here requires endless reapplications of sunscreen. I hate sunscreen. I hate how it smells. I hate how it goes on and feels sticky. I hate having it on my hands and nowhere to wash my hands. I hate how it makes me sweatier than if I didn’t have it on. I feel like I wouldn’t have to apply as much sunscreen as often if I lived in a tree filled place like Oregon.
- After I finish my doctorate in education (if that’s the path I choose), I’d like to write books for the kids in the “Everyone a Reader” program. EAR is a program for kids who need additional attention learning to read. The child is taken out of his or her classroom for about 10 minutes to read one-on-one with a volunteer. The kids select books from their level and read them out loud to the volunteer. The volunteer has been trained to help the kid improve. I was a volunteer for this program for many years, and the books are mind numbingly boring. If I love reading and I’m falling asleep at the plotless primer, I cannot imagine what the reluctant reader is going through. I would love to create a series of entertaining books that the EAR kids would love to read.
I am certain there are more things I’d like to accomplish in this life but I cannot think of anything else right now. As I think of new ideas, I may add them.
The second part of this homework is if I already have a life list is to make progress on one of the goals. I added in that I’d like to compare the two lists and see if they have anything in common. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what was on the previous list so it’ll be interesting to see if I’ve made any headway on any goals. I suppose to achieve the goals laid out on a life list, one should probably print out the list as a reminder!
Did anything I write make it to your Rockin’ Life List? If so, note it below in the comments section.
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