I don’t like to make bucketlists. I explained that a while ago. To me a bucket list seems so fatalistic.  I suppose it need not be. However, for me, it is so. I know someone dear to me that has been given months to live and it is inconceivable to me that someone so young won’t live to see how our kids turn out.  But I don’t want to get bogged down in sadness. I understand this is all part of the cycle of life. It’s just that sometimes it just plain old sucks. And it is ok to say that.   With that said, this friend of mine is working on a wish list. I don’t refer to it with her as a bucketlist. Maybe the phrase has lost some of that end-of-life meaning with so many young people making bucketlists, but to me its still a sad word. So, I am sticking with wish lists. To each his or her own. Right?

Part of my wish list these past few years has included the goal to make it to Alaska. I loved the quirky Northern Exposure show.  I almost went to Alaska to work on those fishing boats. I have no idea what I was thinking other than it was going to be a lot of money.   How I would have survived the constant vomiting, I don’t know.  Somehow, I ended up not going although I was selected through some college lottery system to go.  Sometimes, it is best to not think through these things.

Anyway, Alaska has been on my list for a while as it is my last remaining state. I really want to be part of the 50-state club.   Last year, I tried to go from Los Angeles during the Christmas break. I wanted to do a train ride from Fairbanks to Anchorage and vice versa. I did the research and I came up with a feasible trip.  Yet, life conspired against me. I ended up getting laryngitis and got really sick.  Figures that would happen to me.   But I got over my disappointed and thought that I would go this year.

We went to Hong Kong for spring break  and that was truly a great, delightful trip. I could see myself living there.   Then we thought that maybe we would go to Alaska in the summer for my son’s birthday. But because we bought a house days before his birthday and school started the day after his birthday, we ended up in Las Vegas. And it was a delightful trip. It had everything that a nine year old boy wanted to do for fun. Yet, sadly, there was no time for Alaska. Sigh.

Then, we thought maybe we can go in December and give that train ride a try.   I was planning on definitely keeping laryngitis at bay this year. Sadly, mother nature toyed with me and millions of others. Hurricane Maria put a damper on our plans as it devastated Puerto Rico and my family must now leave the island and come live with me. They are coming out in December. I am grateful that they are alive and that I have the ability to help. And thus, Alaska is put yet again on hold.

You just never know what life is going to put on your path for you to overcome. While I won’t be able to go to Alaska this year. I will have the warmth of an extended family around the Christmas tree and the Menorah on our mantle (as we are a mixed family).  I’ll take that warmth and beauty.   It is all good.