Being Evel Knievel With My Bucket List

I watched a move a couple of years ago with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson called "The Bucket List". About old men, dying old men, who decide to hurriedly do everything they have ever wished before they croak. Cute. Didn't really pertain to me for I was forever young with all the time in the world on my side. 

I totally get it now. 

Don't get me wrong, I am not...1. an old man and 2. not getting ready to croak (as far as I know). There is just this sense of daredevilry, absolute 'I don't give a flying ***k' freedom that is happening right here right now that cannot be denied. On scales big and small.   

It goes from something as simple and uncomplicated as additional cheese on my pizza (I ain't afraid of no stinkin' gout) or swimming immediately after eating to something that is guaranteed to put me in an early grave if it goes, well, wrong: plummeting to the earth outside of a plane (aka skydiving) or sitting on a public toilet set. With no paper down. In a dive bar or questionable eating establishment. Pshaw. Getting needled and inked in 'sensitive' areas? Parasailing off a raft in the middle of the ocean without true professional assistance? Been there. Done that. 

Not that I was ever a person scared of my own shadow. Challenges have always turned me on.  I have always forced myself to at least try the impossible, to attempt the unachievable but with one toe on the ground to anchor me. Now, there is something about this decade that just makes me feel.....aaarrrggghhhhh! crazily free! Completely, unabashedly untethered. The world is really my oyster, throw caution to the wind, all that jazz. 

And no, I don't need to 'speak to somebody'. 

This loss of fear (even if you've never had any), this influx of what the hell excitement, is exhilarating. Running with the bulls in Pamplona. Tied of simply reading about it. Swimming with sharks. Not the businessmen but the real McCoys. Eating spicy food after - yes, after- midnight. Singing out loud in public comfortable that you are piercing ear drums and busting windows (and not in a good way). Do it. Do it. DO IT. *Pounding the top of my desk while flinging my head from side to side* 

It's not that you're in a rush; you're in a 'now'. You realize that all of the previous years have gone by pretty damn quickly and now is the time to get 'er done. That well maintained plot underneath the beautiful cherry tree or that oven fit for one is not a dream but a reality. And you can't live forever. Not just yet. 

xo,

Fabulously Fourty(ish)