Please share a photo related to your bucket list!
It was a simply request. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic closed down my employer’s corporate office over a year ago, we have been having “photography prompts” at work on our company’s blog. Each week the coordinator comes up with a topic for us to post pictures. It was a way for us to continue feeling connected to each other because everyone in the company was now working from home. We were able to share small glimpses into our personal lives while being at home on lockdown.
While I’ve worked from home as a nurse case manager since 2006 (for 3 different companies) the office support staff on my current job as well as executive leadership all work at the home office in a very typical corporate America setting. Just like all other companies in America and across the world, we have been impacted in countless ways also. This fun activity served many purposes, but mainly as a chance to feel connected to co-workers who were likely facing many personal challenges while trying to maintain a proper life-work balance which did not seem to exist anymore. The lines and crossover from home to work was very blurred to say the least.
The topic of the “photo prompt” this week was simply this: “Please share a photo related to your bucket list!” Some expected pictures would be things like sky diving, bungee jumping, go on a safari, see the Northern Lights, go on a road trip across America, learn how to play a musical instrument, run a marathon, ski the Swiss Alps, write a book, or go on a mission trip to Africa.
Given there is a storyteller inside me, my responses to the photo prompts are typically not one phrase or one sentence, and certainly not even one picture. I often post a whole collage and write several sentences to explain my photos. So it was with this one as well, and after I posted my response, I received an email from our Chief Medical Officer. Before I get to that, consider what some of our other prompts were and what your responses may have been.
- Post a selfie since we haven’t seen each other in person in a while.
- What vacation are you dreaming about taking after the pandemic?
- Let’s see your pets.
- Let’s see your plants and gardens.
- Let’s see your home office workspace.
- Post a picture of your younger you.
- What at-home hobbies have you explored during lockdown?
- What home improvement projects are you working on or have already completed?
- What Secret Santa Christmas gift did you receive from an anonymous co-worker?
- Let’s see those pictures of work memories when we actually got to see each other in person.
So back to this week’s photo prompt. Keep in mind this is not social media but rather a corporate blog space for all employees to see. Below is my exact response to the entire company:
Please share a photo related to your bucket list!
OMGoodness! This is such an easy one for me. I’m.living.my.bucket.list.every.day! All I had to do was borrow some of my Facebook collages that I’ve posted in the past to explain my bucket list life. So here goes the explanation of the 4 sets of pictures:
GROWING OLD TOGETHER: Those pics are my husband (William) and I down through the years. It starts with the middle pic in that collage when we were 14. We were in 9th grade, and he was my homecoming court escort that year. That’s when we started “dating” as freshmen in high school. We eventually broke up but got back together a week before high school graduation when he almost died of a blood clot (epidural hematoma) requiring emergency surgery to save his life. (I mentioned that in last week’s photo prompt because his sister is my favorite nurse for saving his life.) So anyway, we got married at age 21 and the other pics are just random pics throughout the years including the bottom center pic from our 30-year class reunion.
PLACES WE’VE GONE: We like to travel the continental US, nothing really overseas as we haven’t built up the nerves for that yet although we have been on a Caribbean Cruise and to the Bahamas. As for the US, we’ve gone from NY to CA with stops all along the way including Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, and even a national TV appearance on Good Morning America back in 2001 in the bottom left pic (dressed in red with TV cameras in the foreground being interviewed by Charles Gibson.) William was named the Dickies American Worker of the Year, but that’s a whole ‘nutha story. It included a trip to NY for Labor Day weekend to be on TV and a brand new Chevy Silverado truck. A week after we got home from NY, the terrorists struck! (Yep, imagine that feeling of euphoria replaced with utter terror for the city that had been so kind to us just a week prior.)
HAWAII 30TH ANNIVERSARY! We finally made it to Hawaii in 2016. That was truly a bucket list, especially considering we do not like flying over a lot of water; hence the reason we don’t travel overseas. But we really wanted a special celebration for 30 years of marriage, so we did it up big and had the best time ever! Now every time Hawaii Five-0 comes on TV, I still point out all the places in the opening montage that we visited. I doubt any other trip will ever compare to this one. However, let me be clear… I tell people it’s not the places we go but rather how HE makes me feel once we get there that makes our trips so special.
MY BABIES: Well of course my life with William would not be complete without our 2 sons, aptly named Jordan William and Brandon William. They are now 22 and 26, so that collage is reminiscent of their baby years and current adulthood, which I still find hard to believe. The top left is from Jordan’s wedding last year a week before the pandemic hit. He married his high school sweetheart too! Needless to say, MOM is my favorite title, and motherhood was the best thing that ever happened to me.
That’s it. I know my life is nothing special, but it’s very special to me. I consider myself so very blessed to actually get to live a life where I don’t have a bucket list. I’m living in the bucket.
Too much information for a corporate blog? I wasn’t sure, but the storyteller inside me takes every opportunity to share a story. After I posted it, I thought perhaps I should have kept it short and sweet with one picture and a one-sentence explanation.
Then I got the email from our Chief Medical Officer. He simply said: “Betty, what a refreshing perspective! A true blessing.” The subject of his email? Living in the bucket!
With his simple yet profound response, I knew I had done the right thing.
I love writing and encouraging people. I often find it hard to give a simple answer as the storyteller inside me often takes over even when I try to be brief and do what is expected. Yet I find myself writing all the time even though it’s been a whole year since I made my last blog post. WOW! Time has flown by, especially during this past “COVID year” which seems to be in some kind of time warp. I dare not try to go back and makeup for not blogging during the pandemic or offer readers any type of explanation as to why this storyteller hasn’t blogged about the global pandemic or anything else going on in this world for a whole year. Let’s just say I think it’s time for me to start sharing again. I hope someone is still listening.
Now, my question to you: What’s on your bucket list or are you living in a bucket?