Rocketship Underpants

photo by koalazymonkey

I like the idea of a “life-list,” as in, big goals for this lifetime. Maggie Mason has created an impressive life-list that she calls the Mighty Life List on her personal blog, Mighty Girl (along with Mighty Goods, Mighty Haus and Mighty Junior). To top it all off, Intel is sponsoring her for a few months to check off a few items. I would be insanely jealous except that she deserves it. Her ideas for these lists are imaginative and prolific and she’s been knocking them off flawlessly in a very short period of time*. I would be all about creating a life-list of my own. In fact, she called upon her readers to do just that and people have not only started, but come up with some stellar new ideas for them.

Me? I want to make a life-list, but for now I’ll have to settle for a Mighty Today List, or a Mighty Next Hour List. This grad school application process has bitch-slapped me and instead of rearing up and fighting back I’ve been covered in a fog, stumbling around, yawning and shrugging when people ask where I’ve been. God. If I could tell you that then maybe I could tell you where I am right now. No idea. But I’m pretty sure coffee is within close proximity.

The thing about me that you have to know, is that I’m stubborn. Very stubborn. John has admitted that I’m the most stubborn person he’s ever met. This stubbornness has served me well (just as my mother predicted twenty years ago) because once I set my mind to do something, I do it right. I obsess. My whole life right now revolves around getting into school. My life starts or stops this spring, so thinking beyond spring, beyond possibly, maybe going to grad school (please, please, please) is difficult. You mean there’s a world beyond GRE prep flashcards and hassling old professors for letters of recommendations? Really? That’s cool, and totally beyond me at this point. I think I’m supposed to go to Peru at some point soon, after applications are due, and my life list would probably include other traveling goals. It would also probably include some goals about volunteering, possibly the idea I had a week ago about a great nonprofit literacy program. That idea, which I scribbled down in my elephant poop notebook and then put away for another lifetime when I’ll know where and and when I am, when I’ll be able to think months in advance without panicking.

I will have a Mighty Life List someday and if I don’t get into any schools that I want, if they don’t offer me enough funding for me to afford it, well then, I guess I’ll just have to jump on that list. (If any of the thirteen grad schools are reading this, however you should know that I would really, really prefer to go to your program first. In fact, yours is my first choice.)

*One particular part of her Greece trip might be the exception, but that has everything to do with some shady car rental company and maybe some short spurt of bad luck.