I love getting older. There’s a level of freedom that I feel as I age…an almost level up everytime of caring less about the once-important, but not really important things. A fine tuning focus of learning about fun, enjoying life and knowing death is closer that makes aging a continuous evolution of deeper gratitude.

The day after I turned my last year in my thirties, I created a forty things to do before my fortieth. Time is flying so fast that I am taking making memories more seriously, and not just with photos. I created a combination of fun, serious (only health related), new and old activities that gave me a goosebump sensation. I want to feel alive so I will do things to either remind me I’m alive or make me feel alive.

I’m almost two months into my kick-off and so far I’ve started three activities that have multiple series. It wasn’t until I was in the middle of the third activity that I thought of sharing my experiences this year in my blogs as a reminder of how memorable this year would be. I was in the middle of my first 10 kilometer race for the year, also the first of ten I need to complete, when I noticed how much I missed running like this; in a crowd but on my own, listening to all the sounds around, seeing things I would not have noticed before and taking in all the various scents in the run. It’s been over four years since I last completed a 10 kilometer run. And to show how fast time is going by, I had to go through my running app to find the exact date I had previously completed one. I was convinced it was two years ago. I couldn’t believe I had to double this number – time is running away to fast.

This thinking only reinforced me wanting to complete these experiences through the year. Two weeks prior I had completed the first of ten hikes and started the first of twelve books for the year. These are things I’ve done before, as I build up to get to the things that will push me out my comfort zone.

As I go through the activities, I’ll reveal them together with my experience and what would make them memorable, even if the only memorable part is that I can cross it off my list.