bucket lists....

while having dinner with josh and a friend of his last nite,
the subject of 'bucket lists' came up.
his friend had just been thru an emergency health ordeal
that almost cost him his life. we were celebrating his being
here and talking about it all.

so no surprise when bucket lists were mentioned.

josh turned to me and asked if i had one.
i grinned, said i had something on there recently, but i couldn't
remember what it was. and i laughed. then i mumbled something
about 'the moments' and kinda passed it back.

a few things were goin' on with me there.
for one, i love the concept of a bucket list. i think it's such a
cool fun thing.
and yet, i can't come up with one.
and at first i felt so dumb about that.
which is pretty funny in itself. what a thing to feel dumb about!
but i have.

i remember the first time i tried making one with someone,
i was sitting with my sister in law in chemotherapy as she
had chemo being dripped into her. she brought it up and i had
nothing to put on the list. i concentrated on her, but realized i
was really lame with my part. the whole thing felt weird right
then and i was at a loss of what to say.

but i've thought of it since then, and still don't have great fun
things to put on there.

when josh asked, and i mumbled something about the moments,
i knew that that was my truth. but it makes me sound so old and
boring. and i was definitely feeling my age with these young guys
there.

i do think it's the moments for me tho.
i wanted to say to josh 'it's moments like you and i had on friday,
sitting on those rocks, just talking to each other.' but i didn't want
to embarrass him in front of his friend. so i mumbled vaguely about
moments instead.

it's moments like sitting there with my sister in law, getting the lunch
out of the fridge in the chemo room and bringing her a drink. those
moments are so simple, and yet so darn complicated.

they seem so easy, so small, so no big deal to have.
and yet, i'm pretty sure i'm not gonna have another moment like i felt
that day with my sister in law. life's so darn complicated, and i'm pretty
sure that was one of the moments i'll hold forever.

having moments with my sons.....the work involved in making it so we
can communicate with each other and like to be with each other......
it's been complicated.

those things seem so simple they really don't seem like they're 'list worthy.'
and yet, that's what my list would be made of.
moments of love.

i'll buy that we're all basically love and all we have to do is let that out
and stop trying so hard and let it be and that it's a lot easier than we know.
that it's truly 'simplicity.'
i'll buy that.

i'll also buy because of our humanness we make it hard, and it's so much
more complicated and intricate than we realize. and there's nothing simple
about it.

i'll buy both of those. cause they're the yin yang of living.
and because of those opposites swirling around - sometimes we realize
the preciousness of the moments, and sometimes we don't.

but i figured out something from last nite -
i don't feel dumb about my non-bucket list anymore.
cause i couldn't have listed sitting on the rocks with josh on a gray november
morning talking about nothing and everything.
and i couldn't have listed pulling lunch out of a fridge for my sister in law in
a chemo room.
i couldn't have listed bob making a sarcastic comment on the phone, not knowing
that it totally filled me with love for him and his crazy mind.

or last nite driving home from dinner, when i grabbed the chocolate orange i had
given to josh and went to open it. (you know those things? they're shaped like
real oranges and you smack them down in their center and they open into slices -
well, i musta had a stale one cause it wasn't opening!)
he's driving in the dark in his new car and i'm smacking a chocolate orange anywhere
i can find a place to smack it down without setting off an airbag.

after a few smacks of chocolate against his window,  and him screaming
'nooooo not my window' and me belly laughing, he pulled over to find a safe
place to smack the chocolate.

you can't write those things out.
you just can't.
you gotta know them when you see them.

and i think that's what i want to do more than anything.
know them when i see them.

maybe that's my bucket list.
know the moments when i see them and hold them while i have them.

cause i think then, i can leave okay.
cause i'll know i lived okay.