Thursday, November 8, 2012

on a Mighty list

I leave for Palm Springs and Camp Mighty in a week.  At some point last week, when the wind sounded like it would take our windows out with each rattle, when the images of Staten Island and Jersey and the Rockaways came pouring through the tv screen with heartbreaking frequency, I thought of cancelling.  I didn't think it was important enough, or maybe just that I wasn't important enough, and I was very close to calling United and asking about a flight refund.

A short time later a post came up on my Camp Mighty team page on facebook.  A woman in New York wrote that she was feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of fundraising for Camp in the aftermath of Sandy and was feeling overwhelmed in general.  I responded with my own comment on nerves but ended with encouragement for us both.  A few days later she sent me an email.  She thanked me for my comment and wrote that after seeing my name she realized that I was the author behind the APW Wedding Graduate Post that had inspired her to reach out to me over a year earlier.  She said that she had drafted the email and then never sent it as her own wedding arrived and she became distracted, but that here I was now.  And that we were going to meet in person.  At Camp Mighty.  As I read her words, the big scary leap suddenly felt smaller, more manageable. 

One of the benefits of Camp is taking the time to learn what it is we want to do, be, create, while we can.  So before heading out, we write a Life List and then use the weekend, and the inspiration found their, to figure out how to get some of them finished.  The simple act of writing this list has meant so much.  I found it pretty inspiring, and I love the idea of putting this out to the world in the hopes that some of them will be completed.  I will be adding some more, but for now:

1.   Be someone's mom (and a good one, or try real hard to be)
2.   Perform in a production of “Into the Woods”
3.   Take Mike to a game at Notre Dame
4.   Form a band, sing in front of a crowd
5.   Grow flowers, lots of them
6.   Go back to school for something that I love, not need
7.   Have an OpEd published in the Times
8.   Be published: anywhere, any format
9.   Write a novel…even if no one ever reads it
10. Write more, tell people blog exists
11.  Have a shared vacation home/rental with my brother and his family
12.  Learn how to mix fancy cocktails
13.  Give up the city, own a home somewhere with space
14.  Have a front porch with a swing
15.  Build a treehouse for my (future) kids
16.  Help draft a bill and lobby it in Washington
17.  Be an extra on Law and Order before SVU goes off the air (preferably the person in the first scene who finds the body)
18.  Practice guitar so I don’t need to rely on someone else to sing
19.  Take more photos
20.  Turn photos into cards, sell them on etsy (even if I only break even)
21.  Be that person who hosts great parties
22.  Have a dog
23.  Pay off credit card
24.  Summit Kilimanjaro with Mike
25.  Take a volunteer trip to somewhere that needs me
26.  Send more real/hand written notes and letters
27.  Take care of my clothes (if it says dry clean, dry clean)
28.  Spend more time outside
29.  Camp more
30.  Join a CSA
31.  Speak on a panel for Women in Development
32.  Do more, do better, with what I know (10 years in fundraising development)
33.  Be a board member of a non-profit I respect
34.  Volunteer to help a startup non-profit get off the ground
35.  Quit Diet Coke
36.  Make a significant change—local or greater
37.  Take a road trip across the U.S.
38.  Start a savings account for my future kids as soon as they’re born
39.  Climb Mt. Katahdin and the last leg of the Appalachian Trail
40.  Re-learn how to use a sewing machine
41.  Re-learn how to do a fuete
42.  Re-learn tough math before my future kids are old enough to need help with it
43.  Learn self defense, or maybe just some basic survival skills (I blame the trend in zombie apocolypse tv)
44.  Learn how to play the harmonica
45.  Learn to speak another language
46.  Learn how to grill/bbq
47.  Learn how to cook without needing recipes as backup
48.  Have headshot taken for blog sites/LinkedIn
49.  Make a budget, stick to it
50.  Have assets or, at the very least, a savings account
51.  See a show at Red Rocks
52.  Fix body: feet, back, more swimming, pilates
53.  Feel confident in the kitchen
54.  Work one day a week from home
55.  Participate in a swimming race/event
56.  Be an audience member at SNL
57.  Wear a bikini in public (and look good in it)
58.  Win a superbowl ring (not sure how, but VP of Football Operations with the NE Patriots sounds good)
59.  Take Mom to Paris
60.  Ask Dad to teach me everything he knows about growing things
61.  Record my Mum’s voice telling her stories/poems/songs
62.  Teach someone something I know well
63.  Call up the restaurant where friends are celebrating a birthday/anniversary and buy their dessert/wine
64.  Figure out logististics of performing a show with my Dad and my brother (tentative name: Tom and The Driscoll Kids)
65.  Get called up on stage to sing harmony line for Come Pick Me Up with Ryan Adams or Falling Slowing with Glen Hansard (hey, a girl can dream)
66.  Travel: Switzerland/Austria (the Alps)
67.  Travel: Alaskan coast/British Columbia
68.  Travel: a rainforest
69.  Travel: the American west (rocky mountains, red rocks, canyons)
70.  Travel: Africa
71.  Travel: Italy (Rome, Venice, Tuscany, Amalfi Coast)
72.  Travel: France
73.  Travel: Greece and Turkey
74.  Travel: Galapagos
75.  Travel: New Zealand
76.  Travel: Thailand
77.  Travel: Watch the sunrise from the top of Haleakala in Hawaii


4 comments:

  1. Great list! Yours is a lot more daring than mine. I have seen an SNL taping and it's a lot of fun.

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  2. Love the "be an extra on L&O SVU". Hah! I always joke that I'd be the techie in the background with one line...

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  3. I found that "have kids" and wear a bikini goes very well together. Seriously! Only time in my entire life that I ever wore a bikini was when I was 31 weeks pregnant. Because at that point, you don't have to worry about your stomach, because it's huge and firm and right out in front. I just pretended that a tan would make the stretch marks less obvious, but really, at that point I didn't care. I felt awesome.

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  4. Mindy, Looking forward to meeting you later this week! (and SNL just seems like the kind of thing I should have done by now after living here for so long, definitely seems fun).

    Sandra, I'm so sad Law and Order is wrapping up-this is one life list goal which will most likely go uncompleted. But I had to put it on.

    highdivingboard (hi Morgan!), All of my pregnant friends say the same thing! It seems like a strange thing to put on the list, and the phrase "and look good in it" is definitely subjective, but I think it's more about me just feeling confident with what I have. And I think the pregnant belly will help me feel that. Now just to get pregnant :)

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