I did a 5K today. Yeah. Did that.
Ok, I walked it, but I did it. I can add it to my list of items to check off my bucket list. Walking a 5K isn’t spectacular as far as accomplishments, but I can be proud of it because it rests up there next to driving cross-country (both ways), living abroad (for 3 years!), learning a second language (as an adult), and being published on a magazine’s blog bi-monthly (that equals being paid to write). I have done lots of cool things, I worked hard at them even though at the time many seemed to just kind of happen.
Yep, been to Niagara Falls too, both the NY and Canadian side.
Now I am older. I’m a single mom to two young kids. I don’t really feel I have the liberty to just pack my hiking backpack and hop on a plain to go take a seasonal field job anymore. I don’t really even have the liberty to just uproot and move to the other side of the country – or even the next town over. I am responsible and I am proud of that. I am stable and I provide my kids a stable life. Yet, I admit I struggle with feeling tied a lot. I did feel free before, I feel kind of stuck now.
But I did a 5K today. I liked it, though I don’t thing it wasn’t totally my thing. It was held in my small town so I thought it would be nice to walk for a cause. It was. Yet once you add in the element of competition, I’m done. I compete against myself and that’s about it. It was no leisurely walk either, it was an hour long power walk. Which was good exercise but not really my kinda thing. I’d rather go pay the $8 to get the kids and I into a state park and stroll along looking for salamanders and identifying trees.
Don’t get me wrong, part of me loved it, I guess, and left going, “Yeah, it would be awesome to get in shape and go all around the region to participate in these things.” But the other part of me thought that it’d rather not be in the crowd.
I don’t know if I will participate in another, but I do feel like I accomplished something today. Yep, something else checked off my bucket list. Something else that just kind of happened. This is what happens when you choose life, choose to live rather than sit and watch life go by passively. This is life lived. And it is sweet.
Share your thoughts: What are some awesome things you’ve checked off of your bucket list?
Seedling 