Like most everyone, I made a list for 2008.

You know, "The List". Things you want to get better at or accomplish or finish or start or lose or gain or ignore or pay attention to. The things that, for whatever reason through out the other part of the year, you feel will be better started at the beginning of the new one. And let's not forget Oprah's big find of 2007, The Secret! Where you write down things you want to accomplish and the phsyical-ness of it makes the world start making it happen or some shit like that.

So, I've seen other people's lists. Theirs involve things like:
Go back to grad school
Get a dog
Get a car
Own a home...

Those are great. Good goals. Go for it. Yeah!
But I decided to get a little more inventive with mine... and it ended up being a few pages...

Things that are on my list:

Ride in an air balloon
Ride all the trains in Chicago(Pink and Yellow to go!)
See a show at the planetarium
Host a travel show
Get a piece published in a popular publication
Go a week without texting(HA!)
Write more letters... to people who live close and far
See that giant dinosaur in the desert
Go to New Mexico
Go to another continent I haven't been on
Fill three Moleskin notebooks

And the list goes on and on.

But the one that I am working on today is:

Write a letter/essay/piece to my future kids about the lessons from their dad.

See, lately I have been scaring myself about how much I want kids and what that would mean for me and how that would happen. But what I've realized is that one day I will be a freaking awesome dad with stories... so many stories that these kids are going to laugh at or get sad at or get scared at or not hear until they are older and drunk and I am slightly senile and they don't know whether to believe me or chalk it up to me being a writer.

But this letter, it's the stuff I am learning now. Not: "You should always start a savings account because you never know when you're going to need it." It's more like: " You may break up with someone that you've lived with for years and have to move out. You will need friends. Good friends. Get those friends and have them help you pack those boxes to get you out of that house so you are somewhere new and not regretting... and this is OK... making these mistakes. It's awesome. It means you know what you want..."

And my kids will read this and totally know that their dad wasn't, well, whoever I will be as their dad when they are around.

Because that's what these lists are for, right? They are to make us better people. They are to remind us we aren't just supposed to get up in the morning and take every second like it's always going to be there. The lists are to make us see that we've got more to offer and we just need to stop watching reruns of Samantha Who to realize that.

On the list: Watch more reruns of the four episodes of Samantha Who