I’m a bit of a list person. At work on a Monday morning I start the week with a list. I usually re-do that list each morning, always with the best intent of crossing items off the list. Some weeks it works great, other weeks and days the wheels fall off quickly and the list becomes just a reference point, not a ‘things to do this week’ list.

But I have a list.

On a weekend when I’m feeling really industrious I will create a list of jobs I want to get done – clean bathrooms, wash floors, dust, tidy a cupboard, paint bench, pot plants, that sort of thing. Its a great sense of achievement to cross the jobs off and see the fruits of my weekend labour.

My girls have adapted the list – mainly because if we had things to do as a group, out came a list to divide the jobs. As teenagers if they saw me with pen and paper in hand they knew we were in for a day of house cleaning and home activities. There was no escaping the jobs. The list made sure of that.

When we were going on family holidays a list created – what we needed to pack and last minute things to do. The girls even started to create their own lists of what clothes they needed to pack.

And most of these lists were pinned to the fridge, the central ‘list holder’ and go to spot for the latest list.

A few years ago my eldest decided she would like her 21^st party in the backyard and ‘we’ will cater ourselves. As the number to be invited grew beyond 70 I knew it was list time. This grew into a multi-faceted list as “Project 21” was implemented.

For Project 21 there was a list for the month before Party Day, another for the week before, a list for the day before, the day of and then during the party. The pantry cupboard doors turned into Project 21 central and everyone knew their jobs. It worked a treat with the only thing not on the list was “hope for a cool day”. It turned out to be 47 degrees that day, so a blow-up pool for cooling off was added to the list.

Yesterday I was list-stumped.

I was with a group of people that included two of my daughters and their friends. Some had travelled to some amazing parts of the world, my daughters are dreaming of and planning places they want to travel. The conversation turned to bucket lists.

Like many I have lots still to do in this life – places to see, people to meet, roller coasters to ride, all the usual things.

But when asked “what is on your bucket list” I faltered, I stumbled, I had no words.

There I was, the queen of lists and I could not list the top 10 things I have on my non-existent-only-in my-head-BUCKET LIST. How could this have happened? Something is missing. My mind started to race as if this was a TV game show and I have 60 seconds to list them to win the ultimate prize. How can I check off a list that isn’t real, that hasn’t been written down, made concrete in the eyes of the world?

The conversation moved on that evening however my mind keeps coming back to the new list that needs to be written. I have tossed and turned as I try to sleep, my days are filled with dreaming as I start to mentally list my bucket events…Visit London…Have a white Christmas…Sing Irish ballads in an Irish pub…Live in Tuscany for six months…Ride the worlds 5 best roller coasters…

Watch this space more to come, this may be the biggest list of my life.

Image : © Can Stock Photo Inc. / pedrosala