The List of Longings

Sometime after my high school graduation and in the first year of college, while in a reflective mood, I penned a list.  This list was inspiring, a gathering of hopeful goals for my life, born out of deep desires and longings of my heart.  At the time I was dreaming.  People make lists, 10-year plans, but I…I would make a list that makes me happy.  I was indeed in touch with those desires of the heart which guide me even today.  Even when the list was folded and tucked away in a storage space for years, its contets forgotten in my mind, my footsteps still followed its direction.  Here is some of it:

• Return to New Zealand
• Travel to all 50 states*
• Read the Bible regularly
• Complete a marathon
• be fluent in German
• Visit towns in Alsace and Ukraine where ancestral family came from
• see a tornado
• publish a photograph
• stay in touch (with specific people)
• give money/volunteer for Neurofibromatosis research
• run regularly
• acquire a large classical music collection
• continue to play the clarinet
• see Africa
• travel the world

Those in bold are things I have done.  In a period of my life when I am grasping onto anything hopeful and happy, contemplating the list and the journey of my life since high school is inspiring.  For, it is more than merely crossing items from a list—these are pieces of me, and together they make me whole.  Not only have  I completed a marathon, I’ve finished five; not only have I given money for Neurofibromatosis research, I ran two marathons for charity; not only have I published a photograph, but have been paid to take pictures and published some writing; not only have I traveled the world, but I lived a year in Germany and became fluent in German there; the 50 states is a work in progress, as I have knocked off 30+ already; and in less than two weeks I will be in India—what an adventure that will be!

To think of these things brings me hope and joy.  I run, listen to or play music, travel, experiences cultures, donate my time because these things cause something inside of me to be whole.

Now I wonder, what else should I add to this list for the next decade of my life…

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Tags: desires, hope, journey, list, longing, travel

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