Before I Die

On the side of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in downtown New Orleans, there is a long black wall with orderly repetitive lines in white print:

Before I die I want to _______________________________.

Fragments of colored chalk are scattered all around the concrete. People pass by, perusing through the completed sentences on the board. Some bend down to pick up a piece of chalk and contribute their own entries.

He and I sit on the parking lot curb by the Before I Die wall. The mid-afternoon May sun is warm on our backs. A trio of guys nearby laugh at the entry about wanting to "swim in a pool of beer." We can't leave this place without writing something, I say exasperatedly. Then what are you going to write? he asks.

It's not a matter of having nothing to write, but of having too many. They all sound so cliched in my head. Before I die I want to publish a novel. Before I die want to graduate from medical school. Before I die I want to become a mother. And then, there are other things that come to mind, that I don't to share with him because I am still too self-conscious.

But it occurs to me as we sit before that expansive board of scrawled hopes and dreams, just how much things have changed since our orbits collided. The paralyzing anxiety has been melting over time, and I come to the realization that the thought of checking off the "Before I Die's" with this person beside me isn't such a terrifying idea anymore.

Less than a week later, I sit in my car with my finger on the ignition button of my Prius. He has already gone back into his apartment complex, and I can feel sleepiness already ensnaring my brain. But in that moment, I pause. For months I'd been waiting, listening for that intuition and gut instinct to speak to me, and suddenly, it's there. Clear and crystal as a bell.

Oh fuck it.

I ask him to come back outside. And I take the plunge.