My Spoonie Bucket List

If you’d asked me what was on my ‘bucket list’ when I was in my 20s, I would have told you that I would love to travel the world, bungee jump, run a marathon and skydive.  Have I done those things?  Some; I have been lucky enough to have visited places such as Thailand, Australia and Prague and I completed a tandem skydive a few years ago, which was one of the best and one of the most scary things that I have ever done , in equal measure.  I’ve run some 5ks but never a marathon and I haven’t (yet) done the bungee jump.

As I have been nearing 40, I have been reflecting on my bucket list.  It would be easy to say that my now Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis has put a halt to it, but that just isn’t the case.  If anything, having a chronic illness make me more determined to live the best life that I can, it is just the case that the bucket list has changed somewhat.  Usually, bucket lists are experiences and activities to complete before you die; now my bucket list, is a list of things for me to experience whilst I am still healthy enough to enjoy them.  This all sounds a bit maudlin but, when you are sick, there seems to be an urgency to completing these experiences that isn’t there as much when you are ‘healthy’.

Whether it is an age thing or an illness thing, my list has also become much more people focused; I want to enjoy the little things that I suspect I may have taken for granted in the future if I wasn’t ill.  Dancing with my son at his wedding, if that is what he chooses to do, being there for any future graduations, meeting any potential future grandchildren and being ‘fun’ Granny… all everyday things that people tend to experience as they age, but ones that I worry won’t be available to me.

Of course, travel still features highly on my bucket list; I haven’t quite seen everything I want to yet.  Experiencing the Northern Lights, enjoying a hot spring in Iceland, staying in a hut on stilts in the Maldives… yes please!  But I am aware that I may have to be adaptable – it might be much more achievable for me to see the Northern Lights in Iceland (whilst enjoying the hot springs, haha) instead of taken a second holiday to somewhere else – though that would be lovely too, of course.

Some things on my list are perhaps more readily attainable: I am still on the search for an OMS-friendly melt in the middle chocolate pudding and I’m still to make a gingerbread house.  I would love to read more of the classics.  A hot air balloon ride and a girls-only spa break sound amazing and something that I could save up for to make a reality.  A marathon is now out of the question with my dodgy legs, but a high speed zip wire experience definitely isn’t.  And one of my biggest bucket list experiences that I am hoping will come to fruition in the next couple of years is travelling by myself to Australia to see my sister and her family – how proud would I be of myself if I can manage the 24-hour journey whilst also dealing with fatigue and mobility difficulties?

The thing about a bucket list is that it helps you to continue to move forward, to continue to have dreams and aspirations.  Those dreams and aspirations do not go away just because you are chronically ill – they adapt, they change.  Thinking about my bucket list has also made me consider what I actually have in my bucket right now – I am so lucky to have my two beautiful children, a supportive husband and loving family.  My illness has made me strong inside and more able to see and appreciate what the most important things in life actually are.  Relationships and love.  Sounds so cheesy but it is also so true.  I hope that every one is having a fabulous week 🙂