My Bucket List

We all have a bucket list someplace--that list of things we want to do before we kick the bucket. Of course, actually accomplishing anything on that  list takes some doing, so I'm going to try and outline how I intend to fulfill the goal as well as the goal itself.

Here goes:

Earn my doctorate - I am almost done with my masters degree. I have found three different Ph.D or Ed.D programs which I would qualify to enter. As soon as I can, I am applying to them.

Get professionally published - I am already published as a coauthor in a peer-reviewed journal. I need to work on becoming a lead author now. I might be able to develop a paper or two out of my masters' thesis.

Publish a work of fiction - I just need to take time out and write. Plant my butt in the chair and put words on the screen. I have a great idea that just needs to be written out. Maybe I'll delegate two hours a week to this project.

Travel abroad - I have always wanted to travel to another country and get to know the people as they really are--not stick to the tourist traps. Sandy and I talked about this a few weeks ago and she suggested I look into a short-term missions trip with our church. We send teams to Ecuador several times a year. I can plan ahead on this one: save up money, brush up on my Spanish, and maybe even learn some useful skills that will make me an asset to the team. If it works out, I may even do it more than once. And as a bonus, I can pack my binoculars and at night knock off some Southern Hemisphere deep sky objects! For more leisurely travel, down the road we'd like to take a Caribbean cruise. Jamaica is definitely a favored destination, and now that the embargo is lifted Cuba would be interesting to visit as well.

Get the Man Cave in order the way I'd like it - This one is easy: an hour a night at minimum, just putting things where I want them to be. Once the back patio is clear I can move a few things back there where I can use them more effectively (my exercise bike and weight bench, for example) and clear even more room in the garage. There are shelves and workbench space I cannot utilize efficiently the way things are now, and having those shelves available will make putting things away easier. The gaming table/train table idea is still very much in the works, especially now that I know what size I need for my table surface.

Start martial arts again - As soon as I lose another 60 pounds there is a Brazilian jiujitsu studio near my home that is calling my name. This particular style suits my build and will allow me to protect my head and my eye in a way many other styles won't. And rank advancement is fairly quick (although not ridiculously so). I am waiting to lose the weight because my joints remind me daily that I am 46 and not 26 anymore, and I don't want to risk further injury.

Complete a Spartan race - The Spartan Sprint is 3-5 miles with obstacles, and is designed so that 95% of the general population can complete it. I can already run about 3 miles even as I am right now. With some effort, I could knock this one off next year. Keep working on it, and I can do the more difficult races as well (it will also help me get to the martial arts goal too).

Attend a bachelor party - I don't know if this will ever happen. I never got one before I was married--all of my male friends were either out of town or not interested. And somehow I figure I'm missing out. It doesn't help that every opportunity I've had to attend one in the past 11 years has somehow ended up with me not going. The question is, how can I possibly pull this off? When my son wants a bachelor party, how the heck am I going to put one on for him if I don't know what to expect myself?

Now, can I pull all this off? Everything on here except for the travel and the bachelor party I could pull off or at least start in the next year. Ecuador I can do in two years. Having goals is nice, but without some kind of plan to reach them all they are is dreams.

Let's be about it!

Breakthrough

I won't put too fine a point on it, but the past nine months have been pure hell.

I knew I would be losing my father someday, but the suddenness with which he was taken from us has hit me pretty hard. I have tried to keep a stiff upper lip and stay busy, because I know that as badly as I am hurting there are people close to me who are hurting even more. I needed to stay strong for them.

But you can only stay strong for so long.

I am not a huge believer in the supernatural. I certainly believe in God in the conventional sense--if you've been reading what I've written here the past couple of years I hope that's evident. I won't rule out something supernatural, but only if all possible natural explanations have been exhausted. And I certainly don't use supernatural forces as a cop-out: "The Devil made me do it" only results in the Infernal One getting credit for lots of work he didn't do. Lazy bastard. One in every project team...

Here I am digressing again.

My daughter started transitional kindergarten today. This is a huge milestone for her. She's now staying at school for a full school day, five days a week. And she's starting to learn to read. Her homework consists of a bag of five books given to us every Monday. We are to read one of the books to her every night.

Morgan absolutely insisted that I read her book to her tonight. Not Mommy, and not a friend of ours who is staying with us who absolutely adores Morgan. It had to be Daddy. And it had to be this book:

Just for some background: my father grew up in and around the Navajo Indian Reservation in New Mexico and claimed to have Navajo ancestry himself. He would often share a lot of the old stories with me when I was growing up. As a very young child I was also very sickly and at times my survival was in serious doubt. My father always encouraged me to make the most of myself in spite of these handicaps, and never allowed me to hide behind them.

So with that in mind, my daughter hands me a book about a Navajo grandfather talking to his grandson about the difficulties the boy, who was born sickly and blind, had early in childhood. More to the point, he talks about how the boy was able to overcome these liabilities and to move beyond the 'dark mountains' in his life.

Boom. There was Dad talking to me, through a story which contained a lot of familiar elements and the persistence of a not-quite-five-year-old girl who was the apple of her Grandpa's eye and certainly is the apple of mine.

I made it through the story, but I am not at all ashamed to admit I was in tears by the end. My son and daughter both gave me a very big hug at the end. It felt good to get some emotions out, even if it did seem unseemly and embarrassing at first. For the first time in nine months, I felt like I could properly grieve!

If this whole setup didn't have my dad's fingerprints on it, then I am hard-pressed to find any set of coincidences or random occurrences that could have lined up so precisely.

I feel as though a huge burden has been lifted. There are still a lot more tears where these came from, but also a lot more to do. And now I feel as though one doesn't have to exclude the other. I finished the night with a nice hard workout. I needed it.

Walk in beauty, Dad. Walk in beauty!