Last week I traveled to a cattle ranch outside in Wyoming for work.  The entire time I was there people were offering me opportunities to cross items off my bucket list: Zip-lining, cattle driving, gun-shooting, and even hoe-downing.  The problem is I can’t cross items on a list I don’t keep.

Everyone I know has a bucket list, including a 16 year old school mate of my son. Maybe I’m missing something. But I feel guilty that I don’t have one at all, so imagine the guilt I’ll feel if I do have one and I don’t get through the items on the list. 

My husband says he has a bucket list but it’s always changing. He had “meeting Lauren Hutton” on his list.  But even after he met her for some reason she remained on the list, and then I realized “meeting” Lauren Hutton wasn’t what he had in mind.  (Sorry honey). 

Apparently the parishioners at the First Unitarian Church in Rochester have filled up two huge walls with the things they want to do before they die.  Maybe that’s the kind of list I would like, one that’s huge and on a wall.  But then I think if you write it on a wall for everyone to see - well that’s the very definition of written in stone and you better do it.

So instead of stressing about my list, I’ve decided to have an Un-bucket list.  The things that are on it have happened to me, but they’ve been unexpected experiences; things I wouldn’t even have wanted to do, but in the end I’m so glad I did them.  So the list is evolving just as I am evolving and while life is happening all around me, and to me.

Like traveling to the Middle East during the Arab Spring.  Definitely not on my bucket list, but I’m so glad I experienced the trip.  It was fascinating and unexpected, with amazing people and experiences I wouldn’t have written on a list, but I’m so glad I got to go. 

Or learning to ski.  Ok, I don’t ski anymore.  But I’m glad I learned so that my kids could learn how.  I know I don’t like it so I don’t do it anymore, so it’s something I can cross off my un-bucket list and never do again.

Or shooting a gun.  At first I didn’t want or need to ever do this in my lifetime.  And then I thought, I’m here, let me just try.  And when the dynamite blew up the tree stump that I’d put in my sights, well, it was both scary and exhilarating at the same time.  I would never have put this on a list, but in the end I’m glad I did it to know I never want to do it again.

Or seeing the Dalai Lama in Syracuse this week (I know this is ironic given it was in the same week I shot the gun).  I was offered the ticket and even though I know seeing him should be on my list of things to do in a lifetime, or at least to do in his lifetime, I still debated going.  And yet, I’m so glad I went for nothing more than to hear his amazing laugh and to see him hold 20,000 people in thrall with his simple and effective message – that each of us is responsible for our own happiness and for peace in our world. So now I will add seeing the Dalai Lama to my un-bucket list and I’m grateful to have had the chance to see him. 

I’m not sure what will be next on the Un-bucket list.  But whatever it will be I know I’m excited to let it happen to me – even if I never expected to do it or even enjoy it, I know in the end it will be worth doing before I kick the bucket.