I’ve always thought bucket lists were silly, especially when they are a list of things best done in youth rather than old age, which, it seems is when people decide to do them.
Yet, if I had a bucket list one of the items would be to have something published in The New York Times. This is actually doable. Many of the features in the Times are reader submissions. One such feature is Tiny Love Stories. I’ve submitted there to no avail.
Today I decided it was time to try Metropolitan Diary. It is little vignettes of encounters that are NYC-centric. Sometimes experienced by tourists, most by native New Yorkers, these stories illustrate what New York is all about.
Back in 2018 I wrote a post about a sweet, youthful, New York memory – you can read it HERE. I did a little editing on it and submitted it today to Metropolitan Diary. Now we shall see what we shall see.
They only things I wish I had done, and now I am too old to do, would be traveling. When I was younger and single it would have been easy but when I had the money I didn’t have the time and when I had the time I didn’t have the money. Let’s face it, I have never been a ‘backpacking through Europe” kind of gal. And I was always a little reluctant to travel on my own.
Sure, sure, I managed to pop over to Jamaica for a Winter vacation by myself often enough. I thought nothing of hopping a plane to visit a friend over a long weekend. Once I flew to Pittsburgh for a blind date. Traveling was easy in those days – and cheap.
But I never got to London, Paris, Edinburgh. I always wanted to live somewhere other than the USA – I could have managed that when I was young, now – too old. When I was 19 I applied to universities in the UK, didn’t get accepted and in retrospect I wonder how I thought I was going to pay for it. But, you know, youthful hopes and dreams. All heart, no head.
That’s my regret – I didn’t travel. There weren’t a lot of places I wanted to go but my travel dreams involved going somewhere and staying for a while. I don’t think you get much out of a “If It’s Tuesday This Must Be Belgium” type tour (a not completely unfunny movie) Also I’m not that kind of tourist.
Regrets, I have a few…What about you?
The Oxymoron 
There’s still time for us to travel, and I can’t really regret not travelling more, though most of our trips over the years were to visit our son and his family in England. To me, travelling is sort of a romantic ideal, but in reality it seems full of hassles and disappointments in the last couple of years with Covid and whatever else caused the reliability of the travel industry to unravel.
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Well at least you got that far, and England is a good jumping off point to go other places even for a day or two. You and I live in countries that are vast and just going from coast to coast is a major trip. Europe is more, compact, shall we say. You can have breakfast in one country, lunch in another and dinner in a third without breaking a sweat! I think THAT sounds like such fun! Yes, travel is so complicated these days, gone are the days when I would wake up in the morning, think I might like to visit my brother in Florida, take the bus to the airport and get on a flight and poof! There before lunch.
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You’re right! We took the Eurostar from London under the channel to Paris on one trip!
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Regrets? I don’t think I’ve ever been much of a dreamer as far as doing something or going somewhere. I’ve never even considered writing a bucket list. I think I’m too busy living inside my own head. In general, it’s a safe and happy place.
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I’ve always lived inside my head too, and still do – and me being me, it is not always a safe and happy place (Anxiety Girl!) – but the scenarios you live out in your head are, in their way, hopes and dreams. I have occasionally tried to make them real.
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I might have a “fantasy bucket list” but at my age, a real bucket list is more like memo or a sticky note. I do have a growing list of things I have decided I’ll never get to do after having not done them so far. A list with a name that rhymes with “bucket.” with things in it like, water ski. Snow skiing–Nope, not go’n’do’t, as Bush Sr. would say. Hot air balloon ride, fighter jet, mountain climbing, spelunking of any sort. It’s actually kind of a relief to write these things off, or cement the idea that they will be easily avoided. I never want to go to Mardi Gras, for example. No one talks about the humidity . . .
When I was around 21 a girl I worked with suggested we travel Europe for the summer. It would have taken all of the $1,000 I had saved up and I was reluctant to use it all up like that. Should have, though. I don’t have that $1,000 now. Funny, I remember not more than a few weeks after I decided not to do that, I almost bought a 1959 Corvette for the same amount of money. Well, damn, I should have done that, if I could have managed to hang onto it.
Seriously, travel seems like a good general goal, as a bucket list item, since it includes more sedate possibilities other than backpacking through Europe. In fact, we’re going to Chicago soon to go through the Art Institute. I would actually like to visit New York City just once. And I’d probably enjoy living there, except at my age it might be a shock to my system.
I enjoyed reading your New York memory. I have nice memories of the San Francisco Bay Area at a time when we cruised up and down El Camino a la Happy Days or American Graffiti and were allowed to have fun without trying too hard.
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Yeah, so many things old farts seem to put on their bucket lists are things they would have never done anyway. They haven’t done them for a reason. While I have always wanted to visit New Orleans, it’s not the weather that deterred me LOL Why so practical when you were young? Tho I can understand that myself – the need for security is a strong one with me – thank you effed up childhood.
As for a trip to NYC – as a dyed-in-the-wool NY’er I say go for it! But wait until the Fall – Autumn in NYC is the most amazing thing to experience. As you make your way back from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, walking along 5th Avenue in the late afternoon, looking out over Central Park – the afternoon light just so magical – it will take your breath away. Last time I was there and experienced that I just stood and cried – from the beauty and the nostalgia.
Thanks for reading that story – one of my better efforts and an indelible memory.
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I remember reading that story and enjoyed reading it again! I hope it gets published!
My bucket list included retiring at 50 and buying a beach house! There are many, many more things on the list that haven’t and most likely will never be done. Travel is on my list but it’s on hold until we don’t have pets. They’ve limited our ability to travel since I have issues leaving them with people we don’t know so we can only travel when my dad can petsit. Now that we just have Lexi it’s easier for my mom to stay here with her but we tried being gone just one night and came back to coffee spilled all over the kitchen cabinets and floor. When I asked what happened, she had no idea it even happened! Yeah, first and last time we’ll leave her here overnight unless there’s an emergency. Anyway, the bucket list will have to wait since Lexi is only 6.
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Whoa – it does seem that your Mom is having cognitive issues, so that’s a definite no go. But I’m sure your Dad will be happy to pet sit at the beach! You’ve done well with realizing your “Wish List”…You’ve come so far and done so well since we first met…Love Ya!
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An interesting topic Grace, l have never had a bucket list, l have on most occasions simply done things l have wanted or desired to do.
I have never really even contemplated a list – l know Suze has one with lost of things on it, but l am quite content with my life and the experiences l have lived.
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I’d call it my regret list – just the occasional thought, as I have gotten older and my life was less in my control, of the things I wished I had done when I could have. Getting something published in the NYT? Well, all NY’ers of a certain bent want that. No biggie if it doesn’t happen just a lark of a thought. I do regret not having had the guts to travel on my own – other than around the US, I mean. As regrets go, not such a major one. I don’t regret all my bad decisions because, well, hell that’s just life.
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That’s it, it’s life. I travelled extensively when younger and continued up to my mid thirties, and then now, l can’t remember the last time l left the country on a break or holiday.
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