8 Months and Counting

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to visit Paris.  I can't remember exactly when the desire hit me, although I think it was the first time I saw the movie "Sabrina."

 You know, the one with Julia Ormond, Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear?  Sabrina (Ormond) has a terrible crush on Ford's younger brother, played by Kinnear.  She is a bit of an ugly duckling - a wallflower, but spends a summer in France finding herself, growing up, and comes back completely changed.  Beautiful, confident.  When the movie came out in 1995, I was 23 years old.  A newlywed who, by all appearances, was all grown up.  But maybe it was this desire to be transformed myself that began my love affair with the city of lights.

Ten years later, in 2005, I finally realized my goal of earning my writing degree.  And once I'd checked that off my bucket list, I started thinking of other dreams and goals, started believing that I could achieve those, too.  Being a published writer was one of them.  I was published online for the first in 2007.  On a whim, I went down to the post office one day at work, and applied for a passport.  It arrived a few weeks later, and I stowed it in my night stand drawer.


Over the next few years, I'd come across it as I searched for other things or attempted to clean out drawers and "get organized."  I'd always put it right back in its place, under my journals and homemade Mother's Day cards from years past.  2009 brought my first publication in a regional print magazine.  And 2010 saw my first of several essays published in national anthologies.

So, while these dreams of mine were beginning to come true, this trip to Paris was stored away in the back of my mind.  A few years ago, I decided that I would take that trip by the time I was 40.  Well, I turned 40 in July, and thought, okay, I've got 12 months...

A few weeks ago, I found out that I will get to make that dream a reality.  On May 1, 2013 (2 1/2 months before my 41st birthday), I'll be going to Paris.  I've already checked the weather for that time of year (upper 50s is the norm), checked out advise on what and how to pack, and scoured the Taulk Tours website to learn more about this "Taste of France" River Cruise on which I'll spend the majority of the trip.

But I digress.  Until then, I'll be counting down the months, weeks and days until I depart.  And maybe even give thought to other dreams...  I've always wanted to visit Ireland.  Drink beer in a little pub while the fog swirls outside.  And I've always wanted to write my own book, walk into some little out-of-the-way bookstore and see my name on the cover of a paperback.  No sense in thinking that can't happen.  Of course it can.  

What's on your bucket list?  And what one dream or goal have you achieved that you weren't sure would ever come true?