30 things I... whatever!

When I got the message asking me to write about 30 things I want to see in my lifetime, I got stumped. I have lived for a long time, had one helluva life. I’ve seen and done everything or almost everything, except probably murder, though I didn’t refrain from killing anyone because murder was a sin; I didn’t kill anyone because I didn’t want to go to jail. So then I asked myself what I didn’t want to do anymore before my lifetime ended.

1. I don’t want to move house anymore. I have moved close to 40 times and I don’t want to have to do that again though something tells me I might have to at some point in the future.

2. I don’t want to do anything related to advertising or PR ever again because I did that for more than 30 years. It’s over.

3. I don’t want to work in an office ever again either. That’s over, too.

4. I don’t want to have responsibilities anymore. I am free. Been there, done that, no more.

5. I will never cook my meals when I don’t feel like it; but once in a while I will bake my own bread, which I enjoy doing.

6. I will never be obliged to wash anything — dishes, clothes, etc. — by anyone else but me.

7. I will never have live-in household help. I don’t want to be their financial support anymore.

8. I don’t want to live with anyone anymore. And...

9. I will never get married again.

10. I don’t want to have anything except cash. Real estate and real jewelry are hard to sell and I don’t want my children fighting over ownership after I die.

11. I will not have any real jewelry ever again, or...

12. Have real jewelry stolen from me.

13. Neither will I have portraits of me painted ever again, or…

14. Have the portraits stolen from me, or…

15. Have my portrait offered back to me but for a fee that I have to pay.

16. I don’t want any friends who borrow money from me, or…

17. Mortgage something with me and then fail to pay back on time or ever.

18. I will never have relationships that involve money.

19. I don’t want to be with anyone who insists on finding things wrong with me and telling me about them.

20. I don’t want to get Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinson’s or any of those complex diseases nobody knows anything about.

21. I don’t want to get cancer. That’s too painful for me.

22. I don’t want to travel just to sightsee. How will that change my life?

23. I don’t want to talk to stupid people. They drive me up the wall.

24. I am tire of doing the same boring things over and over again. I always try to find something new to do and...

25. I don’t want anybody telling me what to do, or when. Just leave me alone.

But, on further reflection, there are a few things that I still want to do before my life goes:

26. I want to be a lounge singer at 74 so I now study singing and exercise to make myself at least partially sexy even if I’m old.

27. I want to laugh all the time at so many funny things I see.

28. I want to teach people to love themselves more, to not be afraid of anything, to stop caring about what other people will say. A person is responsible only for him/herself, so he/she can forget about other people’s opinions and concern him/herself with just what he/she thinks.

29. I love sleeping in my room when it rains hard, listening to the rain fall, watching the raindrops splattered on the glass.

30. Most of all I pray that I will die while I still look young, lively and happy, that God take me in my sleep after my lounge act. He should not wait until I’m 80.