My Reverse Bucket List

Last week was hell.  No really, it was just pure hell.  It was a week when everything that could go wrong, did.   Stomach flu for the entire f#&*ing family, water leaking into the basement, missed deadlines, rejection letters, rejection emails, more snow days, pink eye.  Shattered dreams, lost hope and vomit around every corner.  Yeah, it was a very bad week.

Sometimes when a week kicks the shit out of you and the week ahead doesn't have too much promise, it's not such a bad idea to look back (sometimes way back) at what you've already accomplished.  It's called a Reverse Bucket List.  Some of my friends have done this on their blogs and I am starting to think they are brilliant.  I mean remember that stupid, impossible bucket list I made to finish before I turned 40? Well, I'm sucking at that list which makes this whole reverse list an even better idea right now.  So, here it goes:

My Reverse Bucket List

1. I'm not an addict.  I consider that a seriously huge accomplishment considering my whack gene pool and my impulse control problems.

2. I went to school in London, England for a semester my junior year in college.  I traveled to Amsterdam and Dublin.  I was thrown off a horse in Wales (legend has it my rather loud rendition of The Carpenters' classic On Top of The World spooked the horse, but whatever).

3. When I was 23 years old, I was acting executive director of a decent-size nonprofit in Pittsburgh, PA. I loved the power and all the money. Okay, there wasn't a lot of power and if you know anything about decent-size nonprofits in Pittsburgh you know there's no money. But I still loved it, power and money have never really been my thing anyway.

4. I won several limbo competitions in two states in my early twenties.

5. I have a bachelor's degree in Broadcast Communications from the same school where Tim Allen graduated got kicked out of attended, Western Michigan University. Go Broncos.

I'm the super serious one in the middle.  Don't I look ready for business school, er, I mean the adventure of life? 

6. I sat center court at a Bulls game and saw Michael Jordan score 50 points in a game.

7. I had a private tour of the White House.  Sounds scandalous doesn't it? I'll just let you think it was.

8.  I discovered my extreme fear of heights on top of a mountain in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Yeah, it was intense. 

9.  I was an editor of a community newspaper. And I had my own column called Adventures in Suburbia.  

10.  Shortly after vowing never to get married because "marriage is outdated and unnecessary and no one stays married, duh" I met Tim and married him two years later. 

I entered into this union like I do all things, very stoically.

We'll celebrate 14 years of marriage this summer.  Fourteen years in and I am more in love with him than ever. Which I never, ever, ever, ever would have believed was possible when I was vowing never to get married.

11. I gave birth four times which really is the only thing that needs to be on this list because that is just all kinds of what? and wow? and something that never stops being amazing to me.

Pregnant with baby number three.

12. I've seen Madonna in concert twice. And I will love her forever.

13. I have been to Southfork, which was my number one item on ANY bucket list up until my visit last year. Dream realized. And it was everything I wanted it to be.

They had a museum.  It was ahhhhhhmazing.

14. I ran a marathon once.  I won't stop bragging about this ever because a few years out, I can't believe I did it.  I mean over 26 miles, that's a lot of miles.

15. For the past 12 years, I have truly loved being a mother. No joke, I love being a mother, their mother.

These four are the loves of my life.

16.  Blogging and vlogging has given me a creative outlet and support network that saves me from very bad weeks in my life.  It also has given me professional opportunities like Listen To Your Mother and freelance writing gigs that I never would have had without my blog.

There, I feel better.  I've done a few things, been a few places.  Now, just like the lyrics from my favorite new/old song that I am obsessed with from the American Hustle soundtrack, Long Black Road, I'm feeling better about having to "get up in the morning take your heavy load...gotta keep going down the long black road."  Besides, this week has to be better than my very bad last week, doesn't it?

What about YOU? What have you done, where have you been? What's on your Reverse Bucket List?

Here's the song I'm obsessed with, Long Black Road.  I should have put it at the top because if you listen to this while reading this post, my list sounds a lot more kick ass.