A small part of me envies those more adventurous souls that have created bucket lists for themselves. I’ve flirted with the idea of a bucket list before, but haven’t given serious thought to what would actually be on it. I’m not much of a risk taker. I mean, I’d much rather fantasize about moving into my Cayman Island beach house when I’m 98 than think about what terrifying things I’m going to fit in to my schedule before I die. But it occurred to me this morning, what if I’m looking at it all wrong? What if I consider it more than a mere list of things to check off. What if I think of this bucket as something to fill with life lessons and meaningful experiences? Our world is full of things to learn and people and places to discover. When the bucket finally gets “kicked” over, all these moments and memories come spilling out. That’s our legacy. It’s just a matter of what you want to fill it with because that’s how you’ll be remembered.
I would like to leave a rich and loving legacy. That’s part of the reason I’m here. Although, there is one other obstacle I have to contend with if this is going to work. As far as learning new things, my life to this point has been full of not much more than good intentions. Don’t get me wrong, I did well in school and all, I’m talking about all those extra curriculars. I have a dusty, hopelessly out of tune guitar that will never play Black Bird and a large Rubbermaid full of tangled yarn that will never transform into baby booties. And let’s not even talk about my kitchen cabinet. A food dehydrator? Really? Most things seem great in theory, but take more patience than I can muster up. I mean, do you know what you have to do to a blueberry before you can dehydrate it? I guess I just expected these things to be much easier. When I started to struggle with them I became frustrated and bored. Maybe that’s why of all things, I stuck to running. Running I knew was going to be hard, it was torturous from the get-go. I can still remember how much I hated it in the beginning. It started on a treadmill in my parents basement. I think I was a sophomore in college- more years ago than I care to count. For one reason or another I decided to run a mile, one whole mile without stopping. Something like 20 min later, red-faced and heaving, I just thought, who in their right mind?
I really don’t know when my feelings changed from loathing to love and I can’t explain how or why it happened. I can say that after all this time, it all at once excites me and brings me peace. In a way it’s my adrenaline rush. I don’t need to jump out of a plane. The risk of tripping over a shoelace and face planting is nerve racking enough for me. Trust me, I’ve bitten asphalt enough times to know that that’s a legitimate and likely possibility.
So maybe I don’t have to have a conventional bucket list. But I do want something. Running helps keep me content, but like most of us I still have a nagging desire to do something more meaningful with my life. So this brings me here to this idea. It really was a no brainier to combine my love of running and writing and traveling (in theory) to start this blog. Don’t worry, I’m not going to write about kilo-joules burned or give heart rate updates at every mile. Stuff like that will bore you and probably kill my joy for the run. Mostly I want to enter as many charity races as financially and physically possible and write about that. I already have a few under my belt so that should help. I might also write about my in between runs if the mood strikes or if anything noteworthy should occur, i.e. the time I fell at Seven Springs and had to phone a friend to pick me up- the bloody mess that I was.
You’d be surprised at the lessons running can teach you. I’m not here to convince anyone to start running. I just want to share my experiences and hope to do so in an entertaining way while at the same time giving back to the community. On that note, if I can also inspire some to find and explore their joy, then this will truly be worthwhile.
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