Today I heard Oprah Winfrey utter the words, “I’d like to do that … that’s something I’ve never done.”  It wasn’t so much that she’d never been to a polo match that surprised me, it was that one of the world’s most powerful, wealthy individuals still had stones left unturned.  Wow.  Whodathunk?

 

In my house and heart there are many lists of Things To Do, long numbered items of tasks, projects or errands to be done and short lists of places to see and people to spend time with.  Shorter still is my “bucket list”, which has grown smaller over the years as reality ultimately replaced fantasy as part of my planning logic.  Often, I kick myself (gently, I’m a pansy) over not making bigger efforts to check the items off of these lists – but knowing that a billionaire hasn’t done everything on her To Do list, well … I feel better about myself.

 

Marvelous biographies and documentaries that highlight the amazing accomplishments of great people throughout history leave me amazed at what humans can do.  Having met many accomplished men and women in person I have also heard their discontented sighs of things they did not or have yet to do.  It is a part of their make-up to constantly be in motion, moving forward, seeing what has yet to be seen and doing what has yet to be done.

 

More often than not, I look at my To Do inventory in a negative light, chastising myself for not getting things finished, or (ok, confession time here) even started.  My aching sacroiliac is a nagging reminder how many sands have passed through the hour glass and how few might be left.  It makes me angry and defeated to think how I let so much time slip away, not completing more of the things that needed to be done/seen/said.

 

But today, I decided that if TV’s highest paid talk show host had items left unchecked, then I’m not going to beat myself up any longer (gone are the wet noodle lashings).  The lazy heat of summer looks as though it is finally on its way out of Southern California and the brisk, wake-up call of October showed up a day early here in the desert.  I am making a solemn vow to not only complete items on my To Do list, but to stop seeing time as my enemy and give myself permission to maybe add some new items to the lists.

 

I am going to try and live by the wise words of someone who knew a thing or two about the process: “Each morning sees some task begun, each evening sees it close; something attempted, something done, has earned a night’s repose.”  Thank you, Mr. Longfellow – I’m going to give it a shot.  By golly, if it’s good enough for Oprah, it’s good enough for me.