Two Greenville women say flexible schedules allow them to check off big goals
Earning a second-degree black belt in tae kwon do. Planning to hike the nation’s 2,000-some miles of rails-to-trails. Transforming part of your two-acre property into a wildlife sanctuary. Attending an Antiques Road Show—finally!—after applying for twenty years to the long-running PBS program. Starting a Korean drum circle. Going on safari in South Africa.
These are just a few items two Greenvillians include in their “bucket lists,” a term popularized in the 2007 film of the same name; the story follows two terminally ill seniors who decide to live big . . . or die trying.
But Dr. Suzy Kim and Laura Getty aren’t dying. Instead, each has created a to-do list some would die for. “I’m a very big believer that there are opportunities for wonderful, enriching experiences around us all the time,” says Getty, who retired after twenty-eight years as a childhood-development teacher. “You have to keep your eyes and your ears open and be willing to take a risk to step out there.”
Like that time she jumped at a spontaneous opportunity to take some risky steps during a Challenge to Conquer Cancer fundraising bicycle ride in 2019. Along the route from Greenville to Maine, the support van happened to pull off alongside the Appalachian Trail. “I said, ‘I need to put my feet on it,’” Getty says she told the driver. ‘I don’t have to hike it. I just have to put my feet on it.’” So she hiked about a half-mile along steep, rocky terrain. In flip-flops. Now green check marks appear after item No. 6 on her list.
Around the same time she spoke with vive, Dr. Suzy Kim was waiting at Newark International Airport, en route to a three-week journey to Cape Town, Kruger National Park, and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Her flight was delayed 12 hours, so she had time to wait.
In the past year, she has also made more time to do what she couldn’t do as a gastroenterologist for the past three decades. “At work, I’m very schedule-oriented, almost rigid,” she says. That’s part of the job description—until one decides it isn’t. Though she has been pulling back her in-hospital and on-call hours, she says dissociating from your job is no walk through the woods.
“You get into that habit and then you feel guilty about taking time off for your personal stuff until you’re 70,” she says. “You deal with such serious things at work, and then you feel guilty being out there having fun—because you are able to—when you see a lot of people who are not.”
She tells about her father, who kept a list of specific goals he never reached. When he died from colon cancer several years ago, that’s when Kim says she started her “nontraditional bucket list.”
She has already hiked the Yosemite Half Dome, a 14-hour round-trip on nearly 8,900 feet of granite. She has trekked in Patagonia in South America. Now, she sets her sights—and her list—on New Zealand, Iceland, and Norway. More immediately, she plans to see America from the rails-to-trails network. When she returns from southern Africa, she’ll get back to the Korean drum circle she started.
While she leans into physical endeavors, Getty lists several items a bit more abstract. Yes, one of her children encouraged her to take tae kwon do, though her knees ultimately mutinied. These days, she looks forward to such accomplishments as: “Resolve a painful relationship.” “Find my continuing role in racial reconciliation.” “Invest in children locally.”
Her list, like Kim’s, illustrates what Dr. Dianne Greyerbiehl says about how creating a self-inspiring blueprint encourages seniors to explore their priorities in their post-retirement years.
“A life plan, more to the point, will help them to transition much easier because a life plan is asking questions about things that mean a lot to you, setting up what your values are and what excites you and what doesn’t excite you,” says Greyerbiehl, who has a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience and opened her Life Coaching Institute in 1999.
After 35 years, she retired. And she has plenty to say about what happens after that. “When you quit your job, no matter what it was, and you’d been in that workplace for a long time, you form an identity and that identity is no longer active,” she says. “There is no model for people who are over 55, and the culture calls it The Golden Years, but it can be golden and then it can be one hell of a ride.”
Madora Howell, who specializes in life transitions, anxiety, and depression at Bay Laurel Center for Psychotherapy, agrees. “Research says that people who have a purpose, someone to love, and something to look forward to are the happiest,” says Howell, who enjoys hiking and keeps a large to-do list. “I think a bucket list helps to often meet the need for a purpose and something to look forward to.”
Turns out, Kim, Greyerbiehl, and Getty don’t much like the phrase, “bucket list,” which suggests doing things you’ve wanted to do before you kick the bucket. Greyerbiehl says that’s disempowering. Getty suggests “life syllabus” makes more sense, especially since she was a teacher. As Kim puts it: “For me, the ‘bucket list’ has just some negative connotations. It probably started off as positive, but think of the word ‘bucket’: what happens when you’re done with the dang bucket?”
Suzy Kim climbed to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park in California. Photo provided
Laura Getty’s “Life Syllabus”
“I want to have items that I can realize,” she says. A strike-through means she has decided she sees no actual way to realize that particular item. Words in italics indicate she hasn’t yet nailed down the descriptors of the actual activity.
3 checks: She considers the item “realized.”
2 checks: “I’ve gotten very comfortably close.”
1 check: “I’ve gotten my toe in the water, maybe doing some initial research, or trying a related experience.”
Here’s a sampling:
- Do my share to turn a painful family relationship into a positive one
- Go to Antiques Roadshow √√√: 2017
- Go to Acadia National Park in Maine √√√: 2016
- Ride Challenge to Conquer Cancer’s shortest training ride for Maine
- Visit as many national parks as possible √. Especially one of the swamp parks! I am hoping my husband and I can tackle at least three parks this year in celebration of our 50th wedding anniversary.
- Get my feet on the Appalachian Trail √√√: 2019, about a half-mile in flip-flops after we stumbled over it by surprise.
- Do an open-water ocean swim, maybe 2 miles Not sure if this is doable or not, but currently, I try to swim two, three times per week at least a mile.
- Spend time on Jekyll Island annually √. This was an important spot for vacations in our childhood. My sister and I celebrated my 71st birthday on Jekyll this April—my first trip back since I was a child.
- Rebuild the foreclosed house we bought in 2006 so that we can stay until we die √√√: 2007 and continuing
- Find my continuing role in resolving racial, gender, and wealth inequities √√
- Invest in children locally √√: Mentorship at Lake Forest Elementary (an outreach program at our church), with our next-door neighbor’s eight-month-old baby boy, and with learning materials for children at our church
- Develop our property as a wildlife habitat √√
In addition, she has what she calls the “major foci for the rest of my life, with charitable giving and with my energy”:
- Maintain loving relationships with my family
- Maintain responsibility for my health with diet and exercise
- Invest in local children
- Advocacy? Responsibility? For racial reconciliation, narrowing the wealth gap, and gender equity
- Stewardship for the environment
- Advocacy for cancer patients and survivors
Source: Laura Getty
