Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The best permission slip you'll ever sign

So now that my birthday has passed and my "30 Experiences" have been completed, I was reflecting on the past year and if this little experiment really made a difference. The whole point of it was to make turning 30 bearable and fun, rather than a horrible, midlife-crisis-inducing nightmare. And I have to say it worked! Boy, did it work! As I made the list for my previous post and remembered all the things I did over the past year, I couldn't help but be truly proud that I finally did some things I always wanted to do. And I had a great time doing it! The best part is that the blog gave me total permission to do all these things. Any other time in life when you woke up and decided you just really needed to drive a riding lawn mower or go fire a semi-automatic weapon you would question whether or not it was important or necessary. I mean, if I didn't have the blog, the conversation would go something like this:

Me: I need to go to the Grand Canyon.
Jacob: Why?
Me: I just really want to see it.
Jacob: No.

But the blog almost sort of demanded that things get done. There was accountability. I could explain why I was doing things. So the conversation instead went something like this:

Me: I need to go to the Grand Canyon.
Jacob: Why?
Me: It's for the blog.
Jacob: We'll leave on Thursday. *Sigh.....

Honestly, it was liberating to have total permission and support. Not only from Jacob (who did actually run a 5k with me!!!! and I will be forever proud) but from my family, friends, and pretty much anyone else I recruited or took advantage of to accomplish my purposes. (Like my parents- oh, my parents!, assorted church members, YouTube, those guys from the Lawn Bowling center.....)

So now that it's over, I have decided I just can't let it go. I can't! I already have a list of experiences I still need to do, so looks like another year of torture for all my blog readers! Whoo-hoo! Can't wait to get started with Experience #1: Finally blog my dissertation on the History of Southern Finland, 1815-1890. It's a real nail biter!

2 comments:

Jen said...

Oh, is Otso helping you with that?

Kt said...

Dang it Jen! You beat me to the inevitable Otso reference. Can't wait for another year of your experiences, Jess--I was at a party tonight and told no less than three people about your awesome example of living life to the fullest. (One of them was Mary, our old roommate, so hopefully that provides some context and makes it a little less weird and stalker-y).