In a little over a year and change I will turn 50. I am not a healthy person, and I am acutely aware that my vision will continue to go. Lately, time feels like the opening credits of Days of Our Lives—that hourglass I watched on my grandma’s tiny kitchen table TV, the sand slipping through grain by grain. I know that when time runs out, as it inevitably will, I want to have truly seen all that I can see and done all that I can do.
My best friends and close family recently gave me an idea: make a list. A list of places I want to visit, things I want to experience, things I want to learn, and moments I want to feel as fully as possible—and then write about them. Maybe I am lucky, because I can see the gift sitting right in front of me: awareness. So I’m starting a 50 Before I Turn 50 list. Over the next 16ish months, it will grow, shift, and evolve, just like I will. If you want to help cross something off—or have ideas to add—this journey is wide open, and I’m inviting you along for it. The bold ones will be the ones I do a blog series with!
1. Watch a sunrise somewhere unfamiliar
2. Write a letter to my future self
3. Visit a place my grandma loved ( Terry Montana where she was born)
4. Record my life stories for my kids, start scrapbooking again.
5. Sit by the ocean with no distractions as many times as possible.
6. Learn something I always said I was “bad at”
7. Take as many trips I can take. (Make a list of the places)
8. My dream as a child was to be a singer. ( take some lessons again and do a open mic night)
9. Forgive someone I never thought I could, put it in a letter. ( Post it on the blog)
10. Start saying no without explaining
11. See a place I’ve only seen in movies
12. Let myself grieve something fully, I am going to grieve my health.
13. Spend a day without rushing,
14. Take more photos not for posting, just remembering
15. Ask for help without guilt
16. Create something with my hands, a new thing every month.
17. Revisit a childhood place. Try and get in contact with the people that live in my grandparents home and go to the house ask to walk through it, sit in the field.
18. Apologize to People I have meant to apologize to.
19. Be seen exactly as I am
20. Do something brave that scares me.
21. Make a will, end of life wishes, and living will.
22. Laugh until it hurts
23. dance in the rain as often as possible.
24. Leave something behind on purpose
25. Watch something beautiful without multitasking, be present.
26. Go sled in the snow, then have hot chocolate
27. Re publish my first book and publish my 2nd book in the series.
28. Then Publish the rest of them up to 12 books.
29. Finish my novel have it edited and published.
30. Write 25 letters to people out of the blue telling them what them being in my life means to me.
31. Read/listen to two books a month.
32. Take Francis to Comicon
33. Get rid of items that don’t bring value or importance.
34. Find my “look” and “Style” Get my Brand on point.
35. Take the boys to a Seattle Hawks game with my Dad.
36. Watercolor.
37. Write a Poem.
38. Make a household binder for myself.
39. Re do the fridge and spice cupboard.
40. Have Brock teach me one song I can play on the piano
41. Make peace with my body.
42. Touch the world with intention, barefoot in grass, and sand, use your hands to start to see, Let texture be your language.
43. Learn resources for the blind now while I am still able to see.
44. Start swimming again.
45. Go Kayak lake Union with a friend, check out all the houseboats.
46. Build a sand castle with the boys.
47. Take a class every few months of something I have never tried.
48. Jump off the Indianola Dock Like I did when I was young.
49. Take a chocolate making class with Brock
50. Learn to make Sushi with Francis.
51. For giggles, try and live everyday with intention.
52. Take Brock on a trip just him and I to a place he picks out.
