Bucket Lists and Barre Chords

It was May of 2020. I had just turned 62.

I was sitting in the spare bedroom of my Florida home—the one I used as my office—and I was scared. Upset. Terrified. Every headline, news segment, and article seemed to scream one thing: COVID-19.

It felt like the whole world was covered in a blanket of despair. And I was wrapped up in it.

I worked for the local county government, and I’d just been furloughed along with all other “non-essential” employees.

That’s when it hit me—this wasn’t just another news cycle. It was serious. It was dire. And deep down, I just knew I was going to get “it.”

You see, I was a walking Petri dish.

Ten years earlier, I’d had shingles. Before that, a cold sore turned into a full-blown facial outbreak that required antivirals.

I caught both strains of the flu the year before. Some weird respiratory virus left me hoarse for weeks.

Despite the shots, the masks, and all the precautions—I always caught everything.

So, I figured: I was next. Surely, I’d be alone in a hospital bed somewhere, wheezing through my final breaths.

And that’s when I pulled out a piece of paper and started making a bucket list.

At the top? Learn to play an instrument.

I’d always loved singing—glee clubs, choirs, school musicals. But in my melodramatic moment of pandemic panic, I envisioned myself serenading the world goodbye with a guitar in my arms, like some kind of musical Viking funeral.

Yes, I thought. That’s how I’ll go out.

So, I drove to Guitar Center. It was closed. So were the pawn shops. So were the local music stores.

That’s when I remembered Amazon.

That night, I ordered a ¾-size Yamaha laminate guitar. When it arrived, I opened the box like it was Christmas morning.

From my very first out-of-tune strum, I was in love.

It was harder than I expected. My fingers didn’t want to cooperate. The chords were frustrating. But I was determined. I practiced. Then I practiced more.

And slowly, something shifted.

That little guitar, ordered in a moment of existential panic, became a lifeline. It gave me something to focus on. Something to build. Something to believe in.

It gave me hope.

Hope that I might make it through the pandemic.

Hope that there was more life ahead.

Hope that this bucket list might not be about dying at all—but about living.

I haven’t checked off everything on that list yet.

But the first item?

Oh, that one’s done.