life enjoyed bucket

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” Dr. Seuss

This time of year, my days are a continuous list-o-rama. Gifts, wrapping, packing, cards, year-end reminders ~ I may need a list to keep up with my lists!

I was taking a quick flip through a travel magazine and came on an article about “the definitive Caribbean travel bucket list”. That’s actually one list I don’t keep ~ a bucket list. Instead, I keep a life enjoyed list.

As I read about the must-do Caribbean adventures that were bundled into the bucket list article, I was once again thankful for my wonderful travel memories. I take photos ~ make journal notes about people, places, things ~ record things on video ~ buy souvenirs ~ all to help capture the memories. That’s also part of the reason I write things on bluwaterlife, to capture and share the moments. In my experience, the truly aggravating thing is that nasty life bits stick in memory like glue without any help at all. The good things can get overshadowed without some tangible reminders to help keep them real. So I collect memories like sea shells and keep them in my mental life enjoyed bucket. Taking them out and looking them over, reliving the moments and smiling because they happened.

Most of the adventures in the article were things I have been able to do ~ some more than once. I’ve been lucky enough to dive with wild dolphins, glide through underwater coral gardens like superman in flight, twirl rays in Stingray City, go deep in the Belize Great Blue Hole, snorkel caves where pirates roamed, canter on horseback across a tropical beach, sail under a big piece of moon ~ heck, I’ve even gone swimming with tropical pigs! The couple of things that I passed on had potential for scary encounters with gravity ~ zip line through the jungle anyone? I don’t fear drowning, but I do fear falling ~ as we know, things break when I hit the ground. Though I will say hiking across jagged broken coral and lava rocks on Warderick Wells Cay in the Exumas ~ and risking my ankles in the process ~ was worth the view from the top of the cay. Just, wow 🙂

I took a little time to look at some random travel photos that make me smile for no particular reason, other than I remember how much fun I had in those moments. I am forever revising my “top five tropical travel moments”, and whether these are on the current top five list or not, they are always part of my life enjoyed.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and many happy memories to all!