Life With A Bucket List

Go To College

I sat on the porch swing in front of Jessica's baby blue house with my sketch notebook, staring out at the slightly grey sky. I had been sitting out there for over an hour. How the heck do I get that shading right?!, I thought, looking at my drawing and back up at the sky. I chewed on the end of my almost bitten through pencil. All of a sudden, an idea came to me. I started rolling the side of my eraser across the clone sky on my paper. Lightly in some places, more heavily in others. After a couple of minutes of this, I stopped and again looked between my sky and the real one. A smile played on my lips. Perfect.

Behind me, I heard the front door open and close. I turned around and scooted over to make room on the swing for Jessica. She sat down next to me and looked over my shoulder at the drawing.

"God," she said. "How on earth do you do that? I couldn't draw like that if my life depended on it"

I shrugged. "If I told you, I'd have to kill you,"

She bumped my shoulder, her blonde hair brushing onto my shoulder. "Yeah, yeah, I get the drill. So, my mom just finished dinner. Cheese ravioli. Are you coming in to eat or do you want me to bring your food out again?"

"No, I'll come in." I replied, tucking my notebook under my arm and standing up. "You came at exactly the right time. I just finished. Lead the way." I said, gesturing my arm towards the front door.

Jessica stood up and walked back towards the front door, holding it open for me. I walked in.

"I just need to go put this up," I said to her, holding up my notebook. "I'll be there in a minute."

She nodded a reply and kept walking towards the kitchen. I looked to my left and walked down the lime green painted hallway until I came to the second door on the right side, which was the room Jessica and I shared. I walked over to the couch that I slept on. My box full of stuff was next to it, still all packed. That's all I had. A box and a bag full of clothes.

I leaned over the box to put my notebook carefully into the side of the box and put an old doll of mine over it. I didn't want anyone to know how to find my notebook except for me.

As I started to lift my arm away from the box, my hand brushed over a familar, creased and faded piece of paper. I hesitated for a minute before picking it up gently and, carefully, unfolding it.

Even though I had long since memorized everything on that 5-year-old piece of paper, I needed to look over it. To remember exactly what I needed to start doing. I read it once, twice, three times. One of the wishes caught my eye. It was near the top, written a little while after I started my bucket list. Probably when I was fourteen, because the handwriting was tiny and very bubbly, from when I started copying Sophia DeMarco's (aka The Queen of Mean's) handwriting to fit in with the preps.

Written in that obnoxiously bubbly handwriting were just three little words.

Go to college.

I looked at those words. I finally had a chance to do what I had so badly wanted to do for four years. Get away from where I was. Travel. Start my own life.

I carefully refolded the old piece of paper. Before putting it back into my box, I thought for a moment. Then I took my notebook back out, placed the piece of paper inside it, and carefully tucked it back in its secret hiding place.

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"This ravioli is amazing, Mom." Jessica said. The older version of Jessica across the table smiled, showing laugh lines around the edges of her eyes.