I wrote a bloody life list...

...and now I'm panicking that I'm never going to get around to it.

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Listen - I’ve never met a list I didn’t love. My favourite is, of course, the To Do list, which is often at least half made up of things I’ve actually already done, so that I can highlight them, pat myself on the back for a job well done, and take a well-earned break thus avoiding having to do anything else on the list…even though my anxiety about having not done those things, was the reason I made the list in the first place.

I have a complicated relationship with my own brain.

Other lists I love making are ones on Rightmove consisting of houses I’ll never buy because I can’t afford them, or they’re in Hull. Similarly, I have many lists on Airbnb, categorised by location, of houses in far flung places that come with housekeepers and chefs that I’m almost certainly never going to go to but that doesn’t stop me imagining what meal I’d cook in the kitchen, after a day spent on the tropical beach that exists at the bottom of the garden. I love making meal plan lists that I don’t stick to because I never get to the supermarket to buy the ingredients. I diligently write lists of things I’m grateful for that I’ll forget the instant a minor inconvenience occurs. I have a constant and ever-growing list of ‘things I want to do around the house’ and occasionally I even go so far as to look at paint colours before getting enormously overwhelmed and sitting down for a cup of tea instead.

The point is - I love lists. So, when I saw a film called The Life List on Netflix, I thought, ‘Well, that’s right up my strasse,’ and I watched it and it was fine and gave me some fuzzy feelings but it also made me want to write a life list. It’s about a girl whose mother dies after finding a list the girl wrote when she was 13, of all the things she wanted to do with her life. The girl doesn’t get her inheritance until she’s done all the stuff. Three seconds after the film finished, I decided I wasn’t going to do that because as the evidence presented above proves, I am not good and completing lists. Great at writing them. Absolutely shit at following them through.

That’s all well and good when it’s a meal plan but when it’s my life’s dreams and desires, the thought of not completing that list felt like a betrayal of my own self that I wasn’t willing to set myself up for. What happens if, on my death bed, I suddenly remember that I didn’t get around to doing anything on the list? That’s not the frame of mind I want to be in when I exit from this mortal plane (plain?!) so, I decided, no life list.

But then, my brain did me dirty and reminded me that if I didn’t make a life list then I’m still going to get to my final moments, furious with myself for not doing a bunch of shit that, if I’d just thought about it for a hot minute, I could have got done while I was alive and well.

So, reader, I made the list and because I have no boundaries and I like to share all the things with all the people, I’ve put it below. Maybe it will also make me accountable so, if you see me around IRL, feel free to stop me and say, ‘How’s the life list going?’ I need all the help I can get.

So here’s my life list (as per my usual M.O. I’ve put some bits on there that I’ve already done - they’re ticked). In no particular order - here goes: