The Bucket List Day

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.”

- Oscar Wilde

What is the weirdest, strangest thing you’ve ever wanted to do?

Did you do it? Or did something stop you?

Sometimes it feels like we humans get so caught up in the hum and drum of existing that we forget to honor our random, creative whims. All those crazy things our true authentic selves want to do tend to fall by the wayside, and this happens for a variety of reasons, especially as we get older. Sometimes life feels too busy, sometimes we are worried about judgment from others, sometimes we simply forget to make time to fulfill our little desires.

But imagine if we truly got intentional about doing all of the silly little things that make our hearts happy. What if we created a space for all the weird and wondrous joys of the world?

What would that look like for you?

For my friend Marissa and I – this looked like a bucket list.

A Brief History of the Bucket List

I could not tell you the specifics of the conversation that led to the creation of the Bucket List, but I could guess with decent certainty that Marissa and I were both laying on my floor at one am and talking wistfully in the way that high schoolers are especially good at. I imagine we concluded that life was so grand and gracious, how could we not take advantage of living?

So, in the summer before our senior year, we came up with a plan – to create a bucket list unlike any other. A bucket list that let us write down every silly thing our hearts desired, big or small. With each entry on the list, we swore we would do it together. So, armed with an old spiral notebook and a pack of multicolored gel pens, we set out to achieve it all. We wanted to fly kites, stand under a waterfall, go ice skating, try new foods, learn magic tricks, and so much more.

What we began that night continued for the next seven years. We wrote over 300 items into the bucket list and completed about 200 of them (to date). However, one memory particularly stands out...

The Bucket List Day

It was the spring break of my freshman year of college and I had not seen Marissa in months. Despite our newfound distance, we didn't want to lose sight of the Bucket List, but we only had one day to see each other. Over letters and phone calls, we swore to each other we’d make that day one for the books. We decided to start a record -- how many Bucket List items could we complete in a single day? We talked over the list, outlined a plan, and called upon our weirdest, nerdiest, and closest friends to join us. The result was…. The Bucket List Day.

And here were some of the highlights:

Wake Up and Watch the Sunrise

Despite our grumpy college student sleep schedules, Marissa and I made it out to watch the sunrise. This was a bit trickier than you’d expect because we lived in the thick throws of Suburbia – where the beginnings of the sunrise are often obscured by the cookie-cutter rows of housing. We actually woke up especially early to drive out to the nearest field we could find (and still had to stand on some old junk to see over the tree line). And although we both had seen sunrises before, there is something special about choosing to see a sunrise, choosing to be in the moment, and choosing to start your day drinking in all those colors.

Hide and Seek at IKEA

For this task, we needed the assistance of our favorite hooligans. We gathered our Bucket List party people shortly after dawn, crammed into one vehicle, and took off to the nearest IKEA furniture store. There, we split into two teams and set timers on our phones. One group would hide, the other would seek, then we swapped places. A group won if they found all the others, and lost if the timer ran out first. Although some of the friends were apprehensive about being spotted by the rule-following customers, it provided a brilliant reason to hide well! You did not want anyone to know you were there, let alone up to shenanigans. Therefore, you needed to hide well, and hide fast.

(My team won, and, surprisingly, we were not kicked out of the store in the process)

Paint Twister

I’ve also heard this activity referred to as “Messy Twister,” but the concept is simple: lay out one big twister board and play the game as normal – the only catch is that each of the circles on the board is covered in paint of the matching color. Thus, every move, bump, and shift smears more and more paint all over the board and its players. The result is a slippery surface and a few multicolored kids!

We set the game up in the grass outside and wore our worst sweats and sloppiest shirts, but no one was truly safe. Paint found its way onto a multitude of crevices and surfaces, but my God, it was worth every moment of scrubbing in the shower.

Hitting Fruit with a Baseball Bat

Perhaps my favorite event of the day was a Bucket List suggestion from Marissa. She once turned to me and said “I just think it would be really fun to hit fruit with a baseball bat” (although perhaps she was inspired by the popularity of the fruit-slicing app, Fruit Ninja). In true Bucket List form, we chose to indulge this funny little whim, rather than question it.

So, still covered in paint, we pulled out a variety of fruit, and a hefty wooden stick (I guess none of us had a proper baseball bat – or maybe my mother was apprehensive about swinging metal bats in the backyard). Regardless, we gathered oranges, apples, limes, and tomatoes and took turns pitching and swinging. Surprisingly, I think the apples had the most satisfying splatter, and unsurprisingly, we all struggled to hit the little limes.

Time Bomb Sodas

Marissa and I desperately wanted to prank our friends, and we thought we had the perfect prank, courtesy of some internet searching. We froze mint Mentos in ice cubes, and then served everyone glasses of Coca-Cola (containing the secret mentos ice cubes). The idea was that when the ice melted, the Mentos would come in contact with the soda, and turn an innocent beverage into an explosion of sugar and fizz. They were going to be time bomb sodas… or so we thought.

Instead, everyone started complaining about minty soda, looked into their drinks, and noticed the white chunks of candy sitting in their solo cups. There was no fizzy explosion, only a liter of Coke ruined. But hey, not everything that day could go perfectly. Marissa and I would just have to check “Epic Prank” off the bucket list some other day…

Why You Should Have a Bucket List Day

The Bucket List Day ended up becoming one of my most treasured memories, but when I think back on that day, it’s not actually the activities that I think about. I think about how much I laughed that day, and how lucky I was that I had friends who brought out my weirdest and wildest imagination. The Bucket List Day occurred in a time of a lot a transition for me – I was starting college, learning to live on my own, and starting to peel back the layers of who I was as a person. But when I came home for spring break, I was reminded how glorious it felt to focus on simply laughing and living this life to its fullest.

The Bucket List continually pushed me out of my comfort zone, and yet, the Bucket List made me feel as though I was honoring my most authentic self. The list gave me the validation that no matter how silly it seems, I should always strive to do all the little wonderous things my heart desires.

And best of all, I know now that I don’t have to do it alone.

Bonus Content:

There is in fact some video evidence of our shenanigans, and because you, dear reader, have made it this far, allow me to share with you the video of us all smashing fruit with a baseball bat (You might notice the paint covered twister board on the ground).

PS. Don’t judge us for our video quality and editing ability (2015 was a different time).