Dreams, Dish Soap, and Why I Said "F*ck It" To Bucket Lists
I’ve always been incredibly confused by “bucket lists.” Not by the idea of them - we all have things we’ve always dreamed of trying, crazy stories we want to be able to tell - experiences we’d like to have “just once,” maybe to ease some lifelong curiosity or to finally live out longtime fantasy. Or perhaps things we’d like to do just to prove to ourselves, or to someone else, that we can. I have such dreams too, among them being getting somewhere by subway and arriving on time. Just to prove to myself that it’s possible, obviously. A rare case in which “I wonder if I can,” and “I wonder if I should” overlap in a positive way for me. Let’s just say that when we wondered if we could take a shortcut across a frozen pond in stilettos...that wasn’t the case.
We’re all a bunch of young adults, right? According to Buzzfeed writers and burned-out corporate workers who have clearly already peaked, we’re living “The Best Years of Our Lives.” Now is the time when we’re supposed to be fulfilling all our crazy dreams, and crossing items off our bucket lists left and right, practically every Friday night. Let’s hear some of those items: Going bungee jumping? Traveling to Bali? Publishing our autobiography? Going vegan? All these Big Plans, that would probably also make a great post on Instagram. So we’re all walking around with these Dream Buckets that are partially filled, and someday real soon, something great will happen that will motivate us to pull something out of them and do it, right?
Many of our lives are filled with to-do lists. Post-it notes stuck onto the refrigerator, checklists written in black pen on lined notepads, colour-coordinated planners with inspirational quotes and pictures of sunsets on them. Perhaps text in beautiful, minimalistically designed apps that are downloaded that one Monday morning when we decided to get our life together, and then are never opened again. The items on these lists vary, of course - we don’t all get to “Transfer 300K into account,” or “Go count Amazonian rainforest beetles” The vast majority of our planned tasks are not terribly stimulating. “Send email to Jane in HR,” “Revise paper,” “Pay rent,” “Think of great startup idea,” “Change cell data plan.” “Buy toilet paper,” “Give up on great startup idea,” “Buy cheap vodka.”
Flipping through my coffee-stained task notepad makes me feel awfully empathetic to any five year old screaming “I don’t wanna grow up” when he’s told to “be a Big Boy.” I want to go up to him and hug him and tell him I promise that there’s more to life. More than waking up with bags under my eyes, drinking my Big Cup of Big Girl coffee while scrolling through some photos on my phone. More than taking the Big Subway to a Big Building where I do Big Things like make spreadsheets, and talk to people in suits, and then forget to buy paper towels on my way home.
Kids make wish lists before Christmas. Hopefully not just ones made up of links on Amazon, although I wouldn’t know - I’m just discovering that three year olds need iPads, apparently. Kids make wish lists all the time. The average toddler asks 300 questions a day, but I swear they start more than 300 sentences a day with “I wanna,” or “Someday I’m gonna.” It gives me hope that most adults have a wish list too. Besides that one filled with expensive headphones, wedding table-runners flats in SOHO. A dream list. Bucket lists, we call them.
But, dreams don’t belong in buckets. Buckets are great for holding soapy water when you’re mopping. Useful for carrying water from wells. Useful for containing tears, apparently. Or when you’re writing a poem and need a rhyme for “Phucket.” On nice days, maybe they’ll hold ice and a champagne bottle. Buckets are great for throwing things into, pouring things into, carrying things from one place to another. We’ll pour out our buckets’ contents or empty them eventually, of course. Someday. Whenever we get to whatever magical place we’re definitely on out way too. Whenever we get that promotion or find that “special someone.”
Even if no champagne is involved, we’re great at waiting for “nice days.” Those days in the rosy future when we can finally pop the top off our bottle of hidden desires and put them into pretty flutes, saying “cheers.” We’re great at shoving our dreams into an invisible bucket and carrying them throughout our lives, from high school to college to our first crappy job. To out second, hopefully not-so-crappy job, to that bar we sit down at in the middle of our lives to down a pint or two to silence the voice that tells us that the best years have come and gone.
But, dreams aren’t like soapy water. Speaking of soapy water. Here’s a bottle of Windex. Now, I’m allergic to Windex, and whenever I get it on my skin, I end up with a massive red rash that itches like crazy, drives me up the wall, and doesn’t look the least bit sexy. Now, usually, this Windex doesn’t get all over me. It stays in a bucket with sudsy water. But occasionally, the bucket will tip over, or the bottle will spray weird, and I’ll end up covered in soap and then with a burning desire to itch my skin off. Again, Dreams aren’t like Windex. They don’t belong in blue plastic buckets. They’re not meant to be simply carried around. But, like water, if they’re left in the open - they dry up. And… dreams aren’t supposed to be annoying, right? They’re supposed to come with a side of sudden rosy positivity that overfills our Motivation Bucket and makes all the dreams come out - making us take action.
Most of us say we’re not great at being patient. We’re awfully patient, however, about trying things we’ve “always wanted to.” The things that we think could change our lives, or at least make for an amazing memory, or a fear conquered. We say we’ll definitely do them “next week,” “after another cup of coffee,” “the next time he calls,” “when the kids are grown up,” or “whenever I finally have some free time.”
Time isn’t like your desperate single coworker with low standards. Time’s not “free to grab drinks after work,” or “free to hang out sometime,” or “free to watch some Netfix.” If you want to “have it your way” with Time, you’ll have to pursue her, to earn it. Or get your credit card ready - she’s expensive.
I can patiently wait for the perfect time to go bungee jumping or to start a company. I’ll get all dressed up and sit on a futon twiddling my thumbs. Well, no, that’s a lie. Who even twiddles their thumbs these days? I’ll lie back and stare at the popcorn ceiling, having my third existential crisis of the week. Maybe go look up some quotes about patience.
An instance, however, when I have exactly zero patience is when I have an itch. Mosquito bite, mysterious irritation from cheap clothing bought online, poison ivy, whatever it is. It’ll drive one crazy. Screw what grandma says, screw how people will look at you - if it itches, I scratches.
And, life is much better about providing unexpected itches than it is about providing sudden bursts of motivations. Shit happens. Sometimes you spill your toxic cleaning product, or peanuts end up in your allergy-friendly sandwich, or you stumble into a patch of poison ivy. A little itch becomes a painful full blown rash that’s visible to everyone. A year ago, I got attacked by a gang on a train one night and woke up in a hospital the next morning. I wouldn’t leave that hospital for almost a year. It felt like life had sprayed Windex straight into my face. Everything itched. I was bedridden and not allowed to walk around, but I had a greater urge to work on my “Bucket List” than I’d ever had on any “Brand New Me” Monday in my life.
What if we treated our dreams like we treat our allergies to dish soap? I’m dumping my Bucket List and making an Itch List.
Things I’ve always been itching to try, things I can’t get out of my head, desires that are hard to calm, those topics I want to jabber endlessly about to someone. Perhaps when desires stop being watery drops of sudsy, vague, unclear ideas that reside in a bucket and start being burning, impossible to ignore, occasionally frustrating itches, I’ll finally stop being so patient, and just scratch. A little Rash decision making is good sometimes.
Like water, dreams left out evaporate and disappear. They can become cloudy and murky, and then we don’t want them anymore. But, our wishes have more in common with itches than with mop water. You never know when they’ll pop up - they tend to come as a surprise. The majority of the time, we can only guess at their origin, thinking back to our Friday night behaviour. Some of them might appear in places you can’t reach by yourself. The best, most trusted friends will help you scratch your itches. Scratch too hard, become too obsessed, and your itch might hurt you. Sometimes “just once” is the better choice.People will try to stop your wishes - they’ll offer you compromises, or temporary ways to make them go away. Calamine lotion for your dreams. Pink and goopy and completely unsatisfying. You may as well just scratch it. It might spread. That might be a good thing.
There are times when it’s good to be patient. No-one likes that guy who yells at the slow cashier. Having meltdowns because of slow printers doesn’t get your essay out any faster. The bad haircut will eventually grow back, and eventually the worst times will pass and the worst wounds will heal.
But we can definitely get too patient. I’ve been writing for years, but my work has only been published in English. My Russian Babushka always asks for me to take a few hours to translate a piece or two for her. I’ve been reminded to to that for 4 years now. It’s not on my bucket list - it’s just something that itched the back of my mind each time I spoke to her. Well, my Grandmother died a few weeks ago. That itch turned into a full blown, impossible to ignore burning rash overnight...but scratching it will never help at all now. I’d waited too long for something to fill my Motivation Bucket. Those weeks ago, life threw the toxic cleaner in my face. But even this rash comes too late. It itched for years: I should have scratched it.
I don’t interact with 5 year olds often, but I’d like to tell them to learn to be patient.. most of the time. Someday the colouring book will probably turn into a task-filled notepad, and the sippy cup of Capri-sun into a double shot espresso. But the list of wishes can stay, and it’s just as important to work at crossing off its items as it is to remember to pick up milk at the grocery store. Buckets are great at the beach. When babies put them on their heads, it’s admittedly hilarious. But maybe, if something really, really itches, don’t shove it in a bucket and carry it forever. A band-aid, even one with Hello Kitty on it, isn’t going to help. Wait till grandma’s not looking, and scratch it.
