Cakes are done, people are finished.

8 minute memoir 

Finish 


Would you like to know the definition of deep existential angst?  It is having 433 books on my "to read list".  It is having 140 movies currently on my "movies to see" list.  It is knowing I would like to see Greece, Versailles, Ibiza, and Bali before I die.  And that's just for starters.  It is knowing there are states inside the United States I haven't been to yet.  It is knowing I have secret deep desire to stay in the Chateau Marmont  someday when the minimum of $500 a night isn't going to make my little debit card cry.  I mean, sometimes I stare at Pinterest and just pin and pin and pin places I'd like to go, outfits I would wear if I were thinner, jewelry I would buy if money were no object, couches I would just die to own, and I just create longer and longer lists of things I'll probably never finish.

Will I really make my own lavender vanilla sugar scrub?  Will I really paint pumpkins and arrange flowers inside of them?  Will I ever actually make the peach cobbler in the crock pot?  Would I paint my front door hot pink?

The thing is, I never really can say for sure.

Here is what I do know.  I finished my bachelor's degree at 45 years old.  I've repainted my front door from white to green to black to red. I finished my Master's degree at 48 years old.  I painted some walls in my house black even though there were a lot of naysayers (they were wrong.)  Who knows what I will do?  My unfinished list of books is 433 long but my finished list is 722 and that probably isn't every book I ever read.  I finished all the seasons of Mad Men like I was in a fever dream one summer.  One never knows what one can accomplish when we decide to do it, even if that "it" is finally watching all the Audrey Hepburn movies you missed.  I am kind of likely to take up yoga.  I may take up running (I mean, probably not, but the point is you never know for sure.)

There are lots of things I'll probably never finish.  Things you will probably never finish.  But there are lots and lots of things that you should at least consider finishing, because otherwise, what is the point really?

My Senior English teacher Mrs. Barton used to say all the time "Cakes are done, people are finished." I am neither done, nor finished, just yet.