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Dear Friend, I don’t know about you, but I’m not a big believer in bucket lists, at least in the ways most people tend to think of them. Hear me out…. When I was going through chemo in my 30s, bucket lists were all the rage, but try as I might, I never ended up writing one. We were encouraged to believe that having a long list of yet unfulfilled dreams and achievements would help ensure us a longer lifespan in which to fulfill them. The sense I got from bucket-listing was that the greater I could make my “To Do’s”, the greater would be my chances of staying on the planet; as if the ambitions themselves could keep death at bay. There was a pervasive belief that the people most likely to stay alive were those who identified BIG plans for their futures - climbing a formidable mountain, landing a prestigious job, winning a coveted award, traveling somewhere exotic, having grandchildren, jumping out of an airplane, even better if it was all of the above. Writing a bucket list asks us to set our sights on a far-off future and color it in with all kinds of coveted eventualities; key moments to look forward to, and back on, with pride. This is all well and good. But my prognosis made forsaking the moment I was in for the idea of a very particular future feel like folly. A bucket list felt like it was saying to my life - exactly as it was - “You’re not enough. Go big or go home!” I wasn’t willing to send a message to my life that it needed a host of new places, people, and experiences to ignite my will to live it, or appreciate it, fully. Somehow I suspected that the moments I was being given, even so sick at a young age, were remarkable enough. My experience of cancer definitely enhanced my longings and my will to live, but not in the ways that bucket lists were meant to. Illness stretched my experience of each moment so that what was most important and sufficient felt much closer at hand. What was extraordinary and wondrous became more readily available, both inside and around me. I didn’t need to journey anywhere new to gain the perspective that so many people believed they needed to travel to find. The most valuable perspective arrived when I could pause wherever I was, remember what I already knew to be true, and appreciate what I already had. Bucket list dreams often require an abundance of conditions and resources not readily available to all of us - time, money, energy, freedom, health, able-bodiedness - in order to pull them off. The idealized future seems to call for already having an ideal life and self, rather than the messy, magnificent lives we wake up to every challenging, beautiful, ordinary day. I believe that too much of a focus on trying to make bucket list dreams come true can keep us from fully noticing and loving the extraordinary lives that we have. Right here, right now. Just in the last week I was profoundly moved by time spent with yellow swallowtail butterflies that was a dream I didn’t know I had, come true. The same was true about an interaction I had with a family member, as well as listening to the rain like it was music, taking my first-ever singing lesson, eating a beet salad with balsamic vinegar I never knew could be so perfectly sweet and acidic at the same time, walking among blazing orange tiger lilies, receiving kindnesses from friends. On and on my bucket was filled with the splendor of moments and things I never could have identified as dreams even a week ago. I wonder: Can we simplify our goals and still energize our longings? Can we bring them closer to where and who we already are, and what we already have? Can our dreams be a bit gentler and more accessible? Can we look at the overflowing buckets of our current lives and notice all the blessings we have already received and achieved? Can we be filled up by relationships we tend every day, small kindnesses we receive and offer, and all the moments that do not ask us to have more impressive lives before we are allowed to feel grateful, alive, and whole? I want here to be my destination, I want now to be my timeframe, and I want my heart to be the bucket that gets filled to overflowing every day. More and more, I want "unconditional aliveness” to guide me. If this resonates with you, these are a few of our explorations in my in-person Aging Gratefully workshop, coming up November 20-22, 2026, and I would love you to be there! Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. I love questions. :-) May the words and resources in this museletter, and on my website, support you to live your life gratefully, now. And may you flourish in the beauty of wherever you are in your life. I am so thankful to be in community with you. From my heart to yours -
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