Things to do before I die
Now Playing: What the Hell Have I? Alice in Chains
Topic: General Diatribes

I was filling out a survey to put on my 'regular' blog & was struck by the question: '3 things you want to do before you die'. It reminded me of a book I saw either at the library or in a bookstore (been to both recently & can't remember where I saw it) about 1001 things you 'must' do before you die. & they were all things like skydive, see yellostone ntl. park etc. Now I'm not against these things & I hope to do the 2nd one & would theoretically like to try the first (assuming I was of normal size, strength & abillity- all of which I am not.) also some of the stuff on the list was out of reach of most people I know. I realize that living where I do & coming from the background that I do I am not actualy in the normal range, for instance: My father never went anywhere further south than New York City, (He'd spent plenty of time in all of the 6 New England states though) He never had a credit card & did not want any. None of that is normal by todays standards, it was amusing to me that with in a year of my fathers death my mother had not 1 but 3 credit cards & moved to Houston Texas (that part was temporary- she was back in Mass in less than a year) My ex Aunt here in VA (originally from Mass too) spent almost 10 years up here before she ever went to Roanoke. (She did go home to Mass a few times but never would go to Roanoke- she said she was afraid of the ride down the mountain- I did that ride within 2 weeks of coming here for the first time in 1987 & have loved it ever since. My best friend who's living with me left awhile ago to go to Roanoke & I had a burst of jealousy because she was going to get to drive down there & I had to stay here because the kids will be home from school soon. I comforted myself by reminding myself that the weather is gray & cloudy & the view won't be that good! (I am trying to forget that the weather here has no bearing on the weather in Roanoke, it could be beautiful there when it's pouring cats & dogs here or vice versa) I know of other people, elders I met when I worked at the local nursing home etc. who had never been further than 30 miles from home in their entire lives & were proud of that fact. I could totally understand that. When we first moved back here in 1997 we lived 20 miles from the center of town & 8 miles from the main road, part way up a mountain & since Valerie was only 13 months when we moved I was a stay at home mom for the first 4 or 5 months & then again the following Summer because it made more financial sense for me to be home with the kids than to earn $5.25 an hour & pay someone to watch the kids. Due to the way my ex is he'd go to work & then go out with friends from work or decide to go visit his mother & step dad or other people instead of going home & so I would go at least 2 weeks with out ever leaving home, except for an occasional late night excursion to the nearest store to get milk or something like that. & then, when he did get paid & we went out to go grocery shopping I felt all weird due to having been at home with kids all the time & not leaving the house at all even the small town felt huge & too busy after being at home on a road that saw maybe 10 cars pass by all day long! Things aren't the same for me here, even if I could stay home more than the 3 days a week that I do, the road is too busy for me to feel as isolated as I did there.
As for other things to do before you die, most of them seem to be travel destinations. Places to see & experience, though I did find a bunch of peoples lists of things THEY wanted to do before they died, I don't know that I could do that though, certainly there's things I want to do but I don't like to limit myself with a list, after all, who knows what might happen next. I want to sell my house after my kids are grown & buy a smallish rv & travel around the country to see it. But if gas is $5. a gallon or if I end up a grandmother younger than I hope to, I might have to change those plans. you just never know, & I don't want some piece of paper I wrote 20 years earlier hanging around & making me feel bad about not reaching my 'goals'especially since I've done pretty well so far with getting what I need to keep my family going!