My bucket list keeps changing shape, which is rude, honestly.
One day, it’s a pilgrimage to the Panama Canal, provided the sky can act right—no hurricanes, no tornadoes, no weather auditioning for a lead role.
Another day, it’s next season’s theater tickets, because hope, apparently, comes with assigned seating and a service fee.
It’s my health, and the creaking parliament of my joints.
It’s losing ten pounds, though vanity and gravity remain in active negotiations, and eating less with all the glamour of a hostage situation.
It’s drinking less, though certain evenings still make an excellent closing argument, hiking more, putting one stubborn foot in front of the other, and learning that solitude can be both a map and a compass—plus cheaper than therapy.
It’s planning future travel because waiting around is rarely an itinerary, and keeping old friends close, tending the small bright fires that still know my name.
I spend less, though I still browse as if hope were on sale. I clean out the closet, since only half of what I own still fits, and the other half is apparently waiting for my comeback tour.
I take a writing class for inspiration, just in case the muse needs a syllabus and a firm deadline. I read poems aloud in public, lending my voice to the room before doubt can grab the mic. I send my writing out like small paper boats into larger waters, then make new lists as if stationery alone can save me.
I listen to other voices rattle the furniture in my head. I read more books in this new YA fantasy phase of mine, because dragons, frankly, have better boundaries than most people.
I spend extravagant amounts of time with family, the truest luxury I know. I get a new bucket because even metaphors need better hardware, then carry forward what still holds water and quietly retire what leaks.
And then there are the things no checkmark can settle: being kind to myself, speaking up more, drawing the map of my boundaries in bolder ink, naming my priorities before the noise names them for me.
And always: hug Mom—because some things are not a goal, they are the whole point.
Corney Press 