Why not now?

Bucket Lists…do you have one?

I think everyone has some sort of vague idea of things they’d like to do before ‘kicking the bucket.” 

I did one of my things last week. I dyed my hair pink. I know that’s a tame one for a bucket list but I have wanted to do this since high school or junior high, depending on if you ask me or my mom. These days there are many different hair colors walking around on various ages of people. When I started dreaming about this though, bright colored hair was a bit more on the fringe.

This made it hard to find ‘the right time’ to dye it. It seemed like I was always starting a new school, job, volunteering position, etc, where I didn’t want the attention focused on my bright hair color. Since 2020 I’ve been working exclusively from home so it just clicked that finally…it was the right time.

I’m at a place in my life, meaning older, that a few other of my things have been checked off:

  • Raise three awesome kids (maybe the number wasn’t a definite goal but I always knew I wanted kids)
  • Loving, happy marriage (most of the time!)
  • Earn a Master’s Degree
  • Own and use a kayak 
  • Live at the beach
  • Take a cruise 

A few things I didn’t think to put on my list but I did them and would have totally put them on if I had known how cool it was when I was younger:

  • Jump off a high dock into a lake
  • Parasailing
  • Belly Dancing
  • Rappel down a cliff

Most of those things just happened because I was in the right place at the right time. The others happened because it was something I wanted deep down so much that it became a high priority.

The magic seems to be the intersection of those two things…the wanting and the right time. Often it feels like the wanting simmers under the surface waiting for the right time. Sometimes it magically finds us but what about when it doesn’t? How do we make it the right time for something we deeply want to do?

Obviously we want as much if not all on our lists to be done before the actual kicking of the bucket. Hopefully, that is a far off deadline for most of us. There needs to be another driver for ‘the right time.’

Maybe the answer is as simple as, “Why not now?”. That’s how I decided it was the right time to dye my hair. I rarely go anywhere other than Costco and the pickup spot in the Wal-mart parking lot. I’m creating online classes, but hey, I’m an artist, colored hair is almost expected. I finally just decided, “Why not now?” and did it.

The unexpected result? I LOVE my hair. I kind of did it just to get it over with so I’d stop wanting to do it “someday.” Now I’m wondering what other list items I should tackle because,

 Why not now?

Fun fact, the term “Bucket List” came into use after the 2007 film The Bucket List. The screen writer had his own list of things to do before he kicked the bucket which he eventually thought would be a good movie.

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