Bucket List

Many of you reading my blog are professionals or have some familiarity with the long arduous road of training to become a physician with its built-in delayed gratification system. I, for one, am not the kind of person who does well with delayed gratification. My husband, on the other hand, is on orders of magnitude a lot more patient than I am in waiting to enjoy the fruits of our labors. Not to say that I want everything here and now, but there came a time when I realized that I didn't want to wait till I was "x" years old with "y" amount of dollars in the bank before doing things I enjoy in my life. I think the intimate relationship we as physicians have with life and death on an almost daily basis played a significant role in my attitude towards life. I just don't want to wait until I'm on my deathbed, only to look back and realize that there were so many things I wanted to do that I never got around to doing.

I recently saw the movie "The Bucket List" starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. Their characters, Carter and Edward, are diagnosed with terminal cancer and they set out to check off items on their "bucket list"--a list of things, great and small alike, that they wanted to accomplish in the few months they had left to live. They go on to see the world but realize that at the end of the day, what really matters are the relationships with the ones they love. I too created my own "bucket list"--a few years ago when I turned 30. I decided that instead of this delayed-- vs. instant--gratification approach to life, for each year of my 30's, I was going to do something I'd never done before.

Here is where I'm at:
30--Pregnant for the first time (with a beautiful not-so-baby girl to laugh and play with!)
31--Oops! I guess my first year of fellowship training got in the way!!
32--I have something planned, but I can't reveal it since my husband may be reading this!

So far, I'm 1 for 3 and this year, I need to double up to make up for last year!

Other items on my list so far include learning to sail (despite not knowing how to swim!) and biking a charity race.  Any other ideas?! (At this time, preferably ones that don't have a big $$$ factor!)