I love summer. I also love fall and winter (don't ask me why but I'm not a big fan of spring), and (at least during the season) I love summer the most. Granted, I'm probably biased because summer means no school. Now that the real world is starting to creep up into my life, the relaxed summer days I love so much have been a little more scarce but that just increases my love for them.
Summer 2013.
It's begun. Well, it began a while ago but still. One thing I didn't do was create my "summer bucketlist". For the past 3 years I've created a list of things to do. And you know what? I never do most of the things on it. I used to think I was just boring and didn't do those things because I was lazy, or not social enough, or some other fault. But I've started to change my tune. It wasn't because I was any of those things (though yes, I do get lazy during the summer, and I'm not always as social as I should be). It was because my lists sucked. They were one stupid idea after another, with maybe one or two intelligent ideas stuck in here and there.
From my lists over the years:
"Draw with chalk on elementary school playground" Why would I go to a blacktop in the middle of the day (which would be blazing hot) to draw with chalk? Come on brain, you should know better.
"Wear a free hugs shirt for a week"
"Take a gnome from my friends house, take pictures with it where ever I go. Return it after a few weeks with pictures." That's creepy. Even though I was probably thinking about a close friend, that's still weird to take someone else things and take pictures of you with that borrowed item. The best part is A)I thought I would do this and B) I didn't come up with this one, I found it on a 'bucket-list' site somewhere.
"Wear mismatching, weird clothes out in public." Why past self, why? It's one thing to be confident, it's another to over express your weird jeans (get it, instead of 'genes' I wrote jeans, because we're talking about clothes. I'm actually slightly amused by my wit).
"Run down the street, yelling "the british are coming, the british are coming". Another one found online.
"Rawr at people".
"Be silent for a day". I still kind of want to do this. Just to see what's it's like to not speak for an entire 24 hours.
See, these things are just not good bucket-list material. And the worst part is, I thought they were good ideas and then I'd get to the end of the summer and had only crossed a few things off my list, which made my slightly disappointed. This is why I've come to the conclusion that summer bucket-lists (for me at least) are silly.
Who needs another list? I've been thinking recently about how much planning goes on in my head, how many checklists I run through each day, and it's impressively sad. I have all the things I have to do today. Then the things that have to be done by the end of the week. Then the things that need to be done 'soon'. The things before school starts. The things to get into grad school. The things to get me a paying job one day. Then this, then that. My life is not a checklist. I can't write this list, eventually check everything off and then I'm done. Well, I could do that but what a sad life that would be. I like being organized, I like being early to places, I like being in control, but that's not always an option in life. I don't want to know what the next 10 years of my life will look like, because if everything went according to my plan (the plan that the teenage me created), I'm sure I'd miss out on so much. I was listening to college graduation speeches the other day and, though I can't remember who said it, I remember them saying something along the lines of "the best things in life happen when you veer off the planned route". They weren't talking about a road trip or a journey in a new city where you get lost because you haven't found your way around. They were talking about life, and how things don't always work out, or don't work out the way you expected them to, but that divergence away from your original plan may lead to the best things in your life. The point being, there is such a thing as too much planning. And, in my current opinion, bucket-lists are part of that overplanning. Yes, it's good to have ideas of new things you want to do but they don't need to be confined to written down, nicely labeled list. I feel like if there are things I really want to try or do, I will remember them.
As I said, when I didn't cross all (or many) of the things off my lists I was slightly sad. I shouldn't have been, because it was probably best that I didn't do those bucket-list ideas, but I still was. This leads me to point that lists are confining. This might be just me but I know there were times, during past summers, when I would look at my list, have no desire to do any of those things, and so I wouldn't do anything. That might have just been the summer kicking in, but I think that, at the time, I felt that if all my ideas were on the list, nothing else was worth doing, because if it had been, I would have written it down.
That being said (without thinking to indepthly on the subject of life), they are fun, silly things to do, especially when you have an entire summer without any major plans. I remember back in high school a few friends senior year create this bucket-list of things to do before graduation. I'll have to ask them how that went, last I remember (a few weeks before graduation) they weren't anywhere near done. I'd advise (if I have any right to advise on bucket-lists, which I probably don't) making a list that comes from your own head, that way there is more inclination to actually complete it because at one point or another you wanted to 'go in a hot air balloon' or 'walk through a drive-thru'.
Geez. That was definitely not the thought path I had envisioned when I titled this post (originally "summer, summer, summer") but I've been thinking a lot about life and I guess 'bucket-lists' were the backdrop on which my brain wanted to convey these thoughts. Maybe next time I'll actually write about my love for summer...
Until next time,
K
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