Friday, June 19, 2015

There's a Hole In My Bucket

This week, even though I keep falling behind on the days, I'm playing with the sits girls in their Stop the Summer Slump Blogging Challenge.

Today, or two days ago, the challenge is to make a bucket list of thing you must do this summer.

I have a thing about lists.  I don't make them.  Because when a list is made, then things have to actually get done.  And in a timely fashion, or they fester and cause so much stress that life becomes nothing but getting things done to cross off a list.

I had a friend in college, well I guess I still have this friend so that isn't really an accurate statement.  I have a friend who, in college, would spend inordinate amounts of time making lists.  Hours were spent on the list, perfecting the list, making the list look good and putting insurmountable numbers of things on the list.  And, SURPRISE, very little on the list was ever done and she was constantly very frustrated and didn't feel like she could do anything fun because she hadn't finished her list.

The only lists I make are shopping lists.

And packing lists.

And both of those are only done just before I leave, not weeks in advance.

Because if I write down my plans or even say them out loud, they become etched in stone, in my mine, and then I worry abut getting them done.

For me, summer has always been a time of relaxation and no plans.  I didn't realized for the first 1/3 of my life that we weren't a "normal" family because we never took summer vacations.  Owning a campground that is only open in the summer meant that we took vacations during other times of the year, or not at all.  Or we ran away for a few days but my parents were worried about leaving the park in none other than Aunt Mildred's hands for more than a couple of days.

I thought everyone had carefree summers that were spent with the tourists coming to them, instead of going off and being tourists.

Even in college, when I worked as many jobs as I could, I still felt like summer was still a break because it was a change in the routine.

When people ask me if I have plans for summer, I get very cagey.  I still teach my class at the gym and do my French group for adult and I work for my parents but because I live right on the property it doesn't feel like work, but it's hard to explain that to people.  So I usually don't really answer.  When they start telling me all of their summer plans, I start to sweat.  I can't imagine ruining my summer with week by week plans of all that must get done before school starts.  When people mention how many weeks of summer we have or how many days are left until school starts, I sneak away and hide somewhere.

I am so on the go from September to June, if I were to make serious plans and lists and expect to accomplish them in the summer, I would never get to recharge and my life would be nothing but a whirlwind of must get it done.

So, I can't share my bucket list for summer or any other time because I have no plans.  Except to plan not to plan every single day of my life.

Oh and I usually plan to have one day a week in summer when I don't get sweaty, which is really hard when I have a garden, mow grass, ride a horse and spend a lot of time outside.  Even on the non-sweaty days I still usually end up a tad moist, but that's OK because I never write down my plans to have a sweat free day.

Linking here too:
http://www.myturnforus.com/2015/06/freedom-fridays-with-all-my-bloggy_18.html

1 comment:

  1. I bet living on a campground made for very interesting summers! We are anti-summer bucket list over here too. It's a cute idea, but to me, just adds unnecessary stress especially when my son is in year round school so we really don't have a break until late August. We're still having plenty of summer fun. Just on the whim, unplanned. Have a great weekend! #SITSBlogging

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