GIGI GOES GAGA

DRAWING A BUCKET LIST

I have a milestone birthday coming up in a few years, and I'm already wondering how I'll measure my life when I get there. Not by my children, since I don't have any. Not by possessions; one quickly realizes that they can come and go far too easily. By love? That's a tricky one. I've had quite a few -- enough to write a book about (we'll get back to this later) and my two failed marriages are hearty fodder for pretty hardcore counseling, should I ever seek it one day. And yet I consider myself fairly lucky in this regard; with only a couple of exceptions, I'd be thrilled to see my past loves show up if I were featured in a '50s This Is Your Life episode.

I am surrounded by friends who are among the kindest, most decent people living, as well as sisters and nieces whom I would choose to be my friends if I weren't related to them already. My parents would never win any awards for parenting, but I've gotten to that point in my life where I wouldn't trade them for anyone else's. Besides, they managed to keep me alive this long, right?

But managing to live this long is not enough reason to pat myself on the back, especially in today's world when how we're supposed to look and feel is what we used to at least 10 years ago. Thus I've decided -- finally -- to give myself much to look forward to and aspire for and write it all down in a bucket list.

In case you haven't heard the term before, it's a list of things you plan to do before you hit a predetermined age. I'd never bothered to draft one before because I was content to simply live and see what happens while I'm doing just that. After all, something interesting always happened. But now I've realized that I need to actually MAKE things happen in my life -- and that it's never too late to make anything until you actually can't.

So what would be on it? Somewhere on top would be learning how to ride a bicycle; every year I say I'll finally do this but somehow I always get distracted and put it off for the next. This would be the most physically-challenging item on my list, I'm certain. I have absolutely no desire to run a marathon, climb a mountain, bungee-jump, or hurl myself off a plane high up in the air. NONE. WHATSOEVER. And when I finally learn how to ride a bike there will be no finish lines or stopwatches involved. Instead, think of a green basket on the handlebar and in it, a cute terrier of some sort, a bouquet of daisies, and a warm French baguette (in my mind the terrier never bothers to eat the daisies or the bread, by the way).

There will be no possessions involved, for sure. It would be so nice to live in a quaint cottage with wood floors topped with slightly fraying rugs, a brick wall in the living room with lots of books on the shelves, and a small but fertile garden where I can sit outside in the Spring with my man and our dog and cat -- but in a way I have that already. It's the happy place I go to in my head when the world gets a bit too weary for words. Besides, I've decided that material things have no place in any bucket list I make because my tastes can and do change (except for the house I just described).

There will be lots of learning involved -- a lifetime of it, in fact. I want to go back to school, maybe for a Master's degree but definitely for lots of classes.There will also be relearning: I want to rediscover my old passions for art and photography. There will be certificates for professional makeup artistry and esthetics, too. And there will also be music; perhaps I'll finally learn how to play an acoustic guitar.

I will travel -- although I'd have to be completely honest here and admit that I'd require some degree of comfort while doing so. We're not talking a stay at the Four Seasons or some fancy private resort here -- but if I could afford either then, at least once in a while, then of course I would choose to (It's MY bucket list!). As long as I have access to air-conditioning in the summer and a clean bathroom at all times, I'm good. I hope that's not too unreasonable to ask for.

And finally there will be writing -- a book, in fact. Perhaps it will be a book consisting of short stories or essays, but most definitely it will be about love and loss and how if one had truly loved and been loved in return then everything in life would have been worth it. Because even now, without my bucket list in hand, I know that I've had a pretty good one. After all, I'm still forward-looking and learning (hoping) to love each day more than the last.

Bucket list on its way soon.

I DO, I DIE(T)

Deciding to get married should be like deciding to begin a diet. You make the decision because you believe that your good life will become better if you do -- and not because you're imperfect or flawed if you don't. If you've chosen to do either thinking that you're a bad person, then getting married or losing weight will not change your self-esteem in any significant way. You'll only be altering your outward circumstances. On the inside, how you feel about yourself will ultimately be dependent on a number.

Before you begin you need to understand that both require tremendous effort, infinite patience, and some kind of uncomfortable spending spike. You'll need to brandish a plan of action and keep daily lists in order to reach your stated goal. It requires the support and encouragement of all the people you care about, especially on those days when you feel hopeless and helpless or that you might possibly go insane. And when you do achieve your goal you may feel the same but part of you says that something's essentially changed.

That day your achieve your weight goal is like your wedding day. Everything seems to be about you: everyone around you will congratulate you on a job well done and wish you good luck and happiness for the future. You look at yourself in the mirror and feel like you're at your most beautiful -- and most people will probably agree. It's also all about this day, about how your life was turned upside down and sideways for months on end, only so that it would be just like this. Maybe you're already thinking about the next few days, about the things you still need to do, but at this point everything still appears to be related to The Big Day that just passed.

Marriage is equivalent to the maintenance phase of your diet, where you have to keep doing all the good things you've learned to do so that hopefully you won't have to stop and start all over again -- and this time with the knowledge, borne of experience, that what you thought would be the end point is actually where you truly begin. It's where all the fanfare has passed and no one seems to be watching; in fact the only time people seem to notice anything is when you're obviously struggling, faltering even failing. The only person who realizes that maintaining your weight is so difficult because you're battling tedium, perhaps even missing the absence of such clear-cut, well-defined goals, is you. Beyond the day-to-day you wonder if there's something else you might or should be doing. Sometimes you ask yourself: what next?

The difference, however, is that you are solely responsible for your diet. It's all under your control. But marriage takes two people. You can have all the discipline, perseverance, positive outlook and optimism that you know is required to make it work, but you just can't make up for what the other person lacks or isn't willing to do. Sometimes it even fails despite your best efforts and intentions. But then it also succeeds.

Dieticians famously measure success according to the number of years a dieter maintains his or her weight. In a way, that's also how traditional society evaluates the success of a marriage, too. But one thing I've learned is that marriage is not a number; it's not about how long a couple can keep it together and celebrate wedding anniversaries or how many children are produced and raised. For me its success is about many, many things that can't be outwardly measured or quantified, and can only be determined by the two people within it. Even when it ends, no matter how short or long it lasted, no one else can say if it was worth all the time, effort, and expense. No one else but you.

And here's another thing I can say about marriage and dieting: the decision to do either one is solely up to you, not because people are saying you should. You are perfect whether or not you do, just as you are. If anyone else seems to be truly concerned about marriage or weight loss, they should simply pay attention to their own. If you give in to the expectations of others and you fail at either, I assure you that they will not carry your burden. It will be yours alone to bear.

Last word. Even if you fail, even if your marriage ends or you gain all the weight back, you are not a failure. No one said life was all about being married or being thin after all.