I have spent the last half hour of my life mired in the blog of a junior of mine from school. She isn't much younger than me. 3, maybe 4 years. Her blog, and her by extension her psyche (No really, I think that's accurate. Read my blog, it's a pretty fucking accurate description of my disposition. I'm a depressed, cynical, misanthropic fuck.) seem sunny, happy, searching and all in all, young. She is young. She hopes, loves, dreams and makes lists of things she wants to do.
I was asked in a group chat of some sort about my bucket list. Here's the truth: I do not have one. No bucket list. No list of things I want to do before I die. No places to visit, languages to learn, planes to jump off of. What is wrong with me that I am a grizzled old man in the dying body of a 28 year old woman? Why am I emotionally the equivalent of Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, pointing my shotgun at anyone who might intrude and being generally angry at the world for still being in it?
Some of this is amusing. I mean, I personally think it's hilarious that the word 'cute' doesn't exist in my vocabulary, that I don't get swept away in a sea of hormones every time a gurgling baby is presented before me, that I rarely giggle or act coy, that I am loudly forthright in my opinions of people and things I find distasteful (including once, memorably, a gentleman who used the word 'dyspeptic' in a conversation 2 minutes into meeting me, in a bid to be impressive no doubt).
But some of it is not. Why aren't there things I am dying to do? Why is enthusiasm such a glaring gap in my resume? I can't seem to muster joy for things like taking trips, learning new things or meeting new people.
I can be happier. I think. Shouldn't I try, at the very least? Shouldn't I at least want to try?
To numb this creeping exhaustion, here is my attempt at a list of things I want to do before I turn 30 and then inevitably die in a bar fight of some sort whilst being sober as fuck.
Go to Thailand with my mother.
Read as many books as I can lay my hands on.
Move to a new city.
Kiss a stranger.
Go on a trip with a man I have been a little bit in love with for more than a decade.
Either make up with my best friend, or move on from her completely. Whichever I can manage more easily.
Enjoy myself, really, truly enjoy myself without any reservations at least once. Just once.
