GO FULL OUT, LET OUT ALL THE REINS

“Every year I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing, and which shirking pain, misses happiness as well. No one ever yet was the poorer in the long run for having once in a lifetime ‘let out all the length’ of the reins.”

— Mary Cholmondeley

How many times have we heard someone say, “Just once, I’d like to...?” Despite my advanced age there are a few things that haven’t happened to me yet. I don’t mean a bucket list, there’s no bucket list in my life. I would rather not spend time planning things to do before “kicking the bucket.” Enjoying my life now, with my friends, my children and my work keeps me busy enough. A bucket list implies that planning is taking place because someday I will be dead. Truthfully, there’s no time for that. Even when cancer came calling, my focus wasn’t doing a bunch of things before taking the big dirt nap, it was how to avoid pushing up daisies in the first place.

There are still a lot of firsts to come for me, hopefully. Lately though, some of my friends have done things they never thought they’d do, either on purpose or through a fluke turn of fate and it’s been amazing for them. None of it was really planned either, it just sort of unfolded.

Christmas day was a record breaker. It was warmer here than in Las Vegas, California and Arizona. So what did my amazing friend Heather do? She and her husband and their friends took a swim. They hot-footed it down to the beach, donned swimsuits and dove right into the surf. On a clear New England Christmas Day, they swam in the Atlantic Ocean, 15 miles from Boston. Who does that? They do. It was amazing seeing the pictures from this once-in-a-lifetime feat. Not even Al Gore and his “Inconvenient Truth” could have imagined it would be 68 degrees on Christmas in this part of the country. Heather and her family didn’t sit on their front step and marvel at the clear day, they ran into it head first, beach towels flapping. That’s what I’m talking about. Letting out all the reins can be wicked fun.

A friend who lives in Vermont goes to her family “Leftover Party” every year on the day after Christmas. Everyone brings something that didn’t get eaten at Christmas dinner the day before. Now, this is Vermont and it’s December. Naturally the party has always been indoors. This year though? For the first time ever, her family, or at least the 40 or so people that were around this year, gathered at their summer camp. Their lake home is a most amazing place, perched on a lovely lawn above Mallet’s Bay with a Victorian home that has stood for over 100 years and a wrap around porch. It was shuttered for the winter, as it always is, but the family decided a bonfire was a good way to celebrate the warm weather. Why be indoors when it was a bright clear day and 45 degrees? Normally it’s deserted in the winter; their camp is a summer thing. No one goes there in the winter. It was the first-ever “Leftover Party” bonfire, and it was historic. There had never been a day after Christmas that was warm enough to have the party outside, and at first, everyone said, “We can’t do that!” But they did, and it was epic.

Letting out the reins and going full speed ahead is something we should all do more often. I had lunch last week with some good friends. It’s always a nice time laughing like schoolgirls over good food and adult beverages. This time though, at the suggestion of I forget who, we took it up a notch and didn’t just all go home after lunch. We decided to take our act on the road, or at least across the street, to a local pub. We played pool, fed quarters into the jukebox, and threw darts. In the middle of a rainy Tuesday, well before 5 o’clock anywhere, we danced, we laughed and then we all worked out rides home with designated drivers because we may be fools, but we are not stupid.

It’s a new year. Don’t make a resolution, and don’t make a bucket list. Just wait for the right moment, I promise it will come, and then giddy up and go for it. Enjoy.