So as my time here in the U.S. comes to an end (as a resident, not a visitor – can’t get rid of me that easily), I find myself placing extra significance on things I might not normally think too much about. The day after Halloween, for instance, I said mournfully and quite dramatically, “That was my last Halloween here.” To which my friend said, “So? You worked the whole day and night, anyway. You missed it.”
She’s right. I did miss Halloween, and the rest of the year, too. My head was buried in launching CREEP and writing FREAK. Damn those little monsters. And now I’m bummed at how fast the time went. There’s so much I wanted to do here, and had I known I’d have only four years to do it, I wouldn’t have put it off.
Here are a few things I always meant do, but never got around to doing:
- See Seattle from the top of the Space Needle.
- Visit Forks, just to see if I can spot a vampire or werewolf.
- Catch a flying salmon from a hunky Pike’s Place market fisherman.
- Visit the Olympic National Forest, which I heard is beautiful and filled with giant, strange-looking mushrooms and trees so majestic you could cry.
- Watch a burlesque show, because Seattle apparently has great burlesque.
- Visit Bruce Lee’s grave.
| (The Seattle skyline at night.) |
Realizing all the things I never got around to doing is an important reminder that time is short. There isn’t enough time to do all the things we want to do unless we make time. I have no regrets about how my writing career progressed this year, because it was a great year for me in that regard. But on a personal level, there’s a lot I didn’t do. A lot I neglected to do. And a lot that I wanted to do.
What about you? Is there anything you want to do that you haven’t made time for yet?