I've never really believed in "bucket lists". It's strange to me to have a set list of things you want to do before you “kick the bucket”. What happens when you only get to a few of them, are you left feeling like you’ve failed at life? Or worse, what if you do everything on your list, then what? With all of your adventures and goals checked off the list, what's left to do? For a while years ago I had a list of things I wanted to do, most of which were completely unrealistic. I forgot about that list for a long time and found it years later. I hadn’t done one thing on the list, but in those few years I had done a bunch of other things that should have been on that list. Why not be open to anything and everything that comes your way and add them to a list of awesome things you've done with your life? Mine would include jumping out of an airplane, having a motorcycle, doing a century ride, getting the tattoo (or several) I always wanted, living in a yurt with no running water, going to Spain and Morocco, learning to sail, playing an instrument, writing poems, learning how to ride a unicycle, learning how to juggle, (not at the same time, yet.) The beauty of these lists is that they could go on and on, there are no boundaries or limits, just a white page ready for your pen.
When I was a kid I loved reading those Choose Your Own Adventure books. It was so exciting how at each pivotal moment you would have a decision to make and you could guide the book in whatever direction you chose. It's like when you're dreaming and you suddenly realize you're having a dream and you decide to fly or eat a slice of cake. There's that amazing feeling of being in control of your own story. There are plenty of things I do each day that I don't particularly like to do. I don't like having to get out my warm bed each morning and feel how cold it's gotten overnight and know that summer is officially over. I don't like having to spend hours alone each day sitting with my nebulizers and vest. I don’t always like going out on a cold morning to go for a run. I don't like how each meal turns into a math equation trying to figure out how many units of insulin to give myself, or having to stick myself with a needle multiple times a day. But these are things we do. We all have things that we face daily that we don't have a choice but to keep on doing. Sometimes I wish life was as simple as a Choose Your Adventure Book. That you could have two or three simple choices and no matter what, you were on to your next adventure. Or if you were like me, you read it one way, then went back and made all the opposite choices to see how it would end differently.
Yesterday I did something that I'd wanted to do for as long as I can remember. It was probably even on that list I had written many years ago and on all my birthday lists as a kid. At 5 PM I got on a hot air balloon to soar 3,000 or so feet above the ground. I’d never been in a hot air balloon, and watching it go from just a long tangled line of nylon in the grass to a 100,000+ cubic foot ballon was amazing. The basket was bigger, the balloon was bigger, even the sky felt bigger with this colorful
I lived in Maine for a few years and every now and then when things felt hard or I was feeling down I would go to the ocean. Standing there, looking out at the ocean always helped put things into perspective. Sometimes you have to stand next to something huge to remind yourself how small you are. Eventually I found that going to the ocean when things were good felt right too. It was comforting to have this massive thing to come to from time to time to remember where you are and who you are. It's like going to a carnival and measuring yourself to make sure you're still tall enough to go on all the rides. Sometimes you just need that reassurance to step up to the next adventure, you need that small reminder, that slight nudge in the right direction to know that you're just as alive and strong as you were the last time.
Almost a year ago today my best friend Esther and I went on a glider ride. Going on a glider ride wasn’t something I had particularly wanted to do, I had actually done it once already as a teenager and didn’t even remember it all that well. But a free certificate for one came to me sort of serendipitously and was perfect timing with Esther who was coming home to Vermont for a bit. It was hot that day and even hotter inside the glider. We sat squished together in this tiny space, barely big enough for one person. We couldn't move at all and for a second when the pilot closed the door over us I had a moment of claustrophobic panic. For a second I wasn’t sure if I would be able to do this. When the plane started moving though and pulling us along the runway I relaxed and concentrated not on what was inside this little capsule but what was beyond it, what was on the other side of the fiberglass windshield that protected us. Soon we were in the sky being dropped by the plane that had dragged us up there. The plane was loud but when it let go of us and flew off and the glider dipped down for a moment before catching the next gust of wind, everything went silent, and the land below us seemed to open up and appear out of no where. We didn't talk the entire time, except to occasionally exclaim how amazing it was. I hadn’t expected to have one of those moments of clarity that I had always gotten from standing next to the ocean, but there it was. Seeing the world from a different angle, from this little motor-less plane, soaring in the air, dipping and gliding with the wind, feeling suddenly so small and vulnerable, yet bigger and braver than I had on the ground. Whatever I had thought I had known about glider rides, I no longer knew.
Erin Evans is a 31 year old adult living with Cystic Fibrosis in Vermont. She is the Program Coordinator for the Cystic Fibrosis Lifestyle Foundation and can be reached at erin@CFLF.org
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