Commentary: How to avoid the bucket list in the sky

When someone dies, it’s almost as if the person got checked off of a bucket list. God’s take-to-heaven list, maybe.

We don’t tend to put dying on our own bucket lists — the point of a bucket list is to name what we want to do before we die. Climb Mt. Everest. Go sky-diving. Swim nude in Lake Cuomo.

None of those are on my list.

Sometimes I feel as if I’m squandering the last years of my life. I argue with myself about that.

“You should be doing something important, not just reading or watching television!” That voice sounds something like my mother’s.

“Wait a minute,” I respond. “I’ve already done important things! I’ve raised a heap o’ children. Some of them even like me!

“I’ve also educated myself, worked to support my family’s welfare and contributed to worthy causes. I’ve been a good citizen.

“I’ve volunteered, albeit to be doing something I like to do in the first place.

“Aren’t those things important?” That voice sounds like Lee’s, only his doesn’t sound whiny like mine.

If you’ve checked everything off your list, it doesn’t mean you’re ready to die. It just means you’re content.

I’ve been everywhere I really wanted to go. Some places I’d like to visit again, but I don’t feel compelled to put them on a to-do list.

I don’t want to do noble things. I want to donate so that other people can do noble things.

I want to laugh and try to make other people laugh. I want to hug people and make them feel good about themselves. I want to play Spider solitaire on the computer.

OK, Mother. I know what you’re thinking. That I spend too much time on the computer. And you’ve probably recently heard, in your corner of heaven, that sitting is the new smoking.

So, OK, I’ve started doing what I would never put on my bucket list, or even on my New Year’s Resolutions lists. I’ve started walking again. I used to walk six mornings a week, for a long time. Lee and I would walk together, and when he couldn’t do that anymore, I’d get it out of the way as soon as I awoke so we could have our days free.

Then my hip started to bother me. When that was better, my knee started to bother me.

Then Lee got checked off that bucket list in the sky, and that was my excuse to just sit and do little. Well, I did write a book, and I do write stories that I hope someone will publish. And I manage to play bridge once a month — instead of the six times Lee and I played. But all in all, I do nothing, and I have no excuse.

That “sitting-is-the-new-smoking” thing motivated me. Besides being good for one’s heart and general well-being, exercise is now said to be good for our aging brains. I see videos of seniors doing line dancing or yoga, and I hear my mother’s voice.

“Well?” she says.

So I’m walking. I started small, just around my block. Gosh, I used to walk all the way to the furthest reaches of our community and back.

How things have changed. It broke my heart to discover that in our community’s effort to decrease our water usage, the landscape committee decided to cut down the trees in the green belt. There were bird houses there for sweet little bluebirds to nest! I’ve never seen that bird anywhere else. And do existing trees actually take much water to maintain? My gardener says they don’t.

So I spend part of my walking time criticizing others, who at least volunteer to do the work required to keep a homeowner’s association running — one of those important things that I don’t do. Shoot me.

I suppose when I get used to the changes, I’ll go back to appreciating the song of the birds who still find places around here to nest, the sight of bunnies hopping to their hiding places, and the smell of the newly mown grass in our greatly reduced greenbelts.

Plus, avoiding overly friendly dogs and eyeing people to be sure they scoop up their dogs’ poop. And finding fault with the landscaper contractors who seem to have no sense at all of what drought-resistant plants are and how to plant them.

And generally just being me, although a healthier version of me. A long way from being checked off.

Author LIZ SWIERTZ NEWMAN lives in Corona del Mar.