a summer bucket list

An exercise in anticipation and fun-having

There is something a little bit melancholy about summer. Once it is summer, the days are already beginning to shorten. We wait all year for this season, and it almost always isn’t long enough.

Summer makes me feel like a child. I want to be outside, I want to play! The preoccupations that plagued me all the months prior are easily forgotten under a cloudless blue sky, the anticipatory morning of a hot day.

As a kid, I spent my summers dreaming. Lying on the floor of my bedroom, writing in my journal, listening to music that made me feel a way I was sure no one had ever! felt! before. I always had Big Plans for the summer.

At some point in the past few years, I started feeling like life was happening to me, and not something I could plan or control in any way. To some extent this is true. Unexpected and horrible things happen, sometimes good things too, all without input from you. But this feeling of being carried along by a current outside of my control was also, probably…depression? I don’t know, I’m not a psychologist. I do know that lately I’ve been finding more interest in doing fun little things just for the sake of doing fun little things. I guess, I’m relearning how to have fun.

I can’t remember the last time I had Big Plans simply for Fun. I’m taking a cue from my younger self, who was always dreaming and planning for Fun.

Making a summer bucket list is an exercise in anticipation, and I think anticipation is a way to prolong the experience you want to have. Like getting ready for a party with your friends, music blaring.

So here is…

a summer bucket list:

1. enter a body of water (swimming not required, splashing about is)

2. read outside

3. check out books from the local library

4. have an aperol spritz

5. wine on a patio

6. have a picnic

7. go on a sunset hike

8. tan lines (but wear sunscreen!!)

9. make popsicles at home

10. visit a museum I haven’t before

11. take a random weekday off (à la Ferris Bueller’s Day Off)

12. reach out to at least one friend I haven’t seen in a while

13. go to chicken shit bingo (lol!! saw a billboard for this and I think it’s a must)

14. wear an item of clothing I’ve been saving for a special occasion

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Of course, no summer plan is complete without a summer reading list.