When I Turn 90 I Will Have…

Courtesy of Jasonb42882, Flickr

On Saturday, the Horn Family migrated to the seaside retirement town of Sidney – where, recent findings show, everyone’s grandmother lives. And we were there to celebrate the 90th birthday of my grandma, Virginia Horn.

One of our family’s traditions is to honour such life-benchmarks with storytelling – the activity is pretty darn simple: the honoury (Grandma Horn) sits in the middle of the room and is inspired/embarrassed by stories about their impact on the world.

The stories were very touching. And the party was superfun (speaking of fun, here’s a fun fact about senior citizens: they love salty things…and pickles).

During the car ride back to my sister’s house (in Victoria), I asked my family what they hoped to achieve by the time they turned 90. And, of course, my grandmother’s milestone got me thinking about what I want to achieve by February 2071.

Now. I’m all about goal setting, so here is a list of what I will accomplish by my 90th Birthday:

• Found and run a non-profit.
• Take Michelle to Europe and also live abroad with our family for a few years.
• Provide our children with unique – and possibly hilarious – names.
• Provide said hilariously-named children with the skills needed to thrive/survive in the world/post-apocalyptic-hellscape-managed-by-robot-overlords.
• Create and perform a stand-up comedy set.
• Host a talk-show (even if it’s one that’s shot and cut by Theo and stars our friends).
• Write a novel.
• Become a sought-after keynote speaker on the topics of community, work, learning, and/or pirates.
• Watch my child/children perform and/or play at something that feeds their soul.
• Collaboratively plant and grow an awesome garden with my family that accounts for 30-50% of our food-intake depending on the time of the year.
• Travel from London to Outer Mongolia in a >$3,000 car with Kurt Heinrich and anyone else stupid brave enough to come with us.
• Save the last polar bear. Contemplate cross-breeding it with a Grizzly Bear. The offspring will be called a “pizzly” cub, which eventually grows up to be a “grolar” bear.
• Learn basic “man” skills, such as carpentry, plumbing and small engine repairs.
• Become the president of a college or university.
• Learn another language (I bet I could go far with Mandarin).
• Make my own cheese.
• Eat my own cheese.
• Design and commission a full corduroy suit, including shirt, socks, underwear, and shoes.
• Whatever the next bungee-jumping or hang-gliding or skydiving thing is, I’m going to do that. Let’s call whatever this might be spacefire dive-gliding!
• Interview at least three real pirates.
• Master Italian pasta sauces.
• Cure hipsterism with seemingly ironic messaging about positive change and, generally, caring about things/people.
• Inspire positive change in the world.
• Collect no fewer than 192,835 stories for my grandchildren; invent 34,942 additional stories.
• Earn the reputation of a respected rebel who inspired communities with fun and creativity to achieve positive results in possibly impossible circumstances.

So, what do you hope to have accomplished by your 90th birthday?