Bucket list revisited

I drive to work the exact same way every morning. I stop at the same espresso drive-through, and I order the same cup of coffee every single time.

It’s very efficient for the baristas — they poke their heads out the drive-up window, see my car and start making a 12-ounce skinny latte with one Splenda. By the time I pull up, it is hot and ready to go. If I have exact change, I can almost roll through without making a complete stop.

Although I appreciate the efficiency of being consistent, I asked myself one morning whether I had reached the point when consistency turns into stuck (as in “stuck in my ways” or “stuck in a rut”). I drove away questioning if I am just a little too predictable, a bit mundane? From this line of thinking, it wasn’t a far leap to “am I just getting old and boring?”

By the time I got to work, I had decided something had to change.

I seemed to step lightly through the aging milestones that tend to trip people up. When I turned 30, my girlfriends gave me a card that said “congratulations on turning 30, you’ll never have fun again for the rest of your life.” I thought it was hilarious and kept right on having fun.

When I turned 40, my mother said, “A woman’s life begins at 40.” And for once in my life, I agreed with my mother!

But then came 50 and … well … 50 made me stop and think. I did the math and deduced that — if I’m lucky — I’ve got about 30 good years to get through my bucket list.

All of a sudden, I felt the pressure because, frankly, I’ve got a long list. I still want to write the great Alaska screenplay, explore the subtleties of wine (all of them, not just the reds), walk the Camino de Santiago, make the leap from half Ironman to full, learn how to play the banjo, climb Kilimanjaro, design and build the perfect small house … lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

I’d have to knock at least one thing off the list every year to get it done. All while warding off various encroachments of age — failing eyesight, memory loss and decreased energy, to name a few.

Right about the same time, I started reading about the idea that the brain is similar to a muscle in terms of fitness. When it comes to physical fitness, conventional wisdom is that cross-training gives you the maximum health benefit.

For example, if all you do is run 3 miles at the same pace six days a week, eventually it has little health benefit because the body is a master at adaptation. However, if you run only three days a week, but also swim a couple of times, play tennis and ride your bike, not just your overall fitness but your running fitness will increase, even if you run less total mileage in a week.

What’s even better is that you don’t have to make huge changes to reap the benefits of cross-training. You just have to mix it up a bit, causing muscle confusion, whereby muscles never have the chance to fully adapt to an activity and, therefore, remain stimulated.

If we apply cross-training principles to the brain, it suggests there could be some value in deliberately confusing ourselves. That’s good news for all of us who walk from the kitchen to the bedroom and are confused about why we went there halfway down the hall.

Actually, that’s not the kind of confusion I’m talking about. What interests me is the notion that I can challenge my brain by performing unfamiliar activities to strengthen existing neural networks, create new ones and enhance my cognitive abilities. And so, I am going to do some things differently in an effort to cross-train my brain; just a few changes to mix it up a bit.

All of this is a long way of explaining why I’m taking a different route to work tomorrow and ordering a different cup of coffee. My apologies in advance to the efficient baristas — from now on, you won’t know from one day to the next whether I’m a skinny latte, a caramel macchiato or an Americano with room.

It may be less convenient for all of us, but rest assured you’re helping me get through my bucket list, one confusing day at a time.

Sammye Pokryfki lives and writes in Wasilla.