The Brown & White

I don't plan on kicking the bucket anytime soon. I haven't even decided what I want to do with the rest of my life yet, but I do have a pretty substantial list of things I'd like to get done before I peace out of here for good.

I call it a Bucket List, not because the film was particularly inspiring, because it wasn't. I had the list before seeing the movie, it was just a, "Things to do before I die list," and "Bucket List" just seemed more appropriate after watching the movie and realizing there was a name for the list I had compiled over the years.

Mine is not very fancy or sophisticated or anything like that. "Witness something majestic" or "find the cure for cancer" didn't make the list. It's more simple things like, adopt a pet, skydive, learn how to French braid, dance around in the fountain in front of the admissions building, kind of stuff.

But it is a real list, not just in my head. It's on paper because to me, writing it down makes it more real.

When I feel like I don't know what to do with my life, when I feel like everyone around me is growing up and stressing about the "real world," the actual real world, not the show on MTV, when I feel like I should follow suit, and when I look back and ask myself what I've done with the past 21 years of my life, it makes me feel good to look at my list and see some things with big red lines through them.

Last September I went skydiving with my best friend, check. It was the most terrifying, most fun thing I think I've ever done, and after I looked up and was positive that our chute had opened, that we weren't just plummeting to the earth at lightning speed, I can honestly say I had never felt so glad to be alive. It was incredible, unreal and so worth the nausea I experienced on the rickety plane ride up.

I went on a picnic in Central Park, check. Complete with sandwiches, sunshine and fruit salad. The only thing missing was a plaid blanket, but that probably would have been too cliché anyway. I'm actually in the process of learning how to French braid. I think I'm going to buy a doll soon to practice on, so number nine on the list should be checked off shortly.

And today, my housemates and I took in a stray cat that some of our friends found, check and check. We didn't just take in Nala Crawl the Warrior King (that's her new name, by the way) but we bought her a snazzy new collar, some sweet dishes for her very expensive cat food and we're giving her all the attention in the world.

I didn't even plan on having a cat in our house senior year, it just sort of happened. That's the best sort of crossing-off you can do, something completely unexpected. A cat pretty much falls in your lap, and you realize mid-pour of the cat food that you just fulfilled a life long goal, a simple one, but a goal nonetheless.

And it makes you smile, it makes you feel accomplished in the way that receiving an A on a test or landing a job that you don't even want ever could.

I want to gamble in Vegas one day. I also want to visit Greece and Antarctica. I'd like to learn how to surf, and I'd love to adopt a child. It's thinking about these dreams, some as simple as a sandwich with a boy in the grass, or the simple twisting of three strands of hair or one as terrifying as jumping out of a plane, that puts everything into perspective.

In the grand scheme of things, what does my grade on my upcoming paper even mean? Does getting an A really make me as happy as I am watching a kitty frolic around my home, or make me laugh the way I did when I landed safely on the ground after falling thousands of feet strapped to a creepy Australian man? Why worry myself over what career path I want to take, when I know I have so many fun things to look forward to, when I know, because I've promised myself, that I have things to do, things to cross off my list?

So while I don't know what career path I want to take for sure, while I don't know where I'm going to be living this time next year or even what continent I'll be on, while I worry constantly about whether I'll be happy with my life a year from now or feeling that I'm making a difference, I can stop to look at my list this very second and feel productive, feel accomplished and feel excited for the future.

With lack of direction in virtually every other aspect of my life, at least I've got this list to keep me straight. So I guess if you're ever feeling like everything is just whizzing by, that everyone is preoccupied by things that don't even matter, jot a few things down. Maybe simple ones or maybe finding the cure for cancer, and maybe it'll help put it all in perspective for you. But please, if you see a girl dancing around in the fountain by admissions tomorrow, don't call the cops.

Correction: A previous version of this story had misspelled the word chute.