My Bucket List...

Letters from Awriterstip – Week 40

Dear Readers,

Everytime when i write articles here for my “Letters from Awriterstip” newsletter, I wonder if this is the end for me? anyway lets dive into this article without being too dramatic. Certain days in life do not arrive with celebration or grand significance, yet they remain unforgettable because of the emotions they carry. Some days feel like entire lifetimes compressed into a few quiet hours. They contain joy and sadness, exhaustion and inspiration, hope and loneliness, all existing together in strange harmony. Today was one of those days for me.

The morning began with work, as most of my days do. I sat surrounded by manuscripts, unfinished articles, and pages from one of the horror books that I was carefully proofreading. Writing horror is a peculiar experience because it demands emotional honesty. Fear only feels real when it is connected to something deeply human. As I edited scenes and designed images for the book, I found myself drifting into thought more than usual. Some moments excited me creatively, while others left me emotionally drained. Writers often live inside their own minds for too long, and eventually, the silence around them begins to speak louder than the outside world.

As the hours passed, I began feeling physically unwell. There was pain, fatigue, and an uncomfortable heaviness that I could not completely explain. It was not simply physical discomfort but the kind of exhaustion that settles deep inside a person after years of carrying memories, disappointments, and unanswered emotions. I decided to step away from my desk for a while. Sometimes the mind needs distance from work in order to breathe again.

I walked outside quietly, carrying a bottle of water and trying to clear my thoughts. I stood on the balcony for some time and watched life unfold in ordinary ways around me. My neighbours were playing with a dog, laughing and enjoying the evening without effort. There was something strangely comforting about watching such a simple moment. The dog wagged its tail with complete happiness, untouched by fear, regret, or worry. For a brief second, it reminded me how uncomplicated joy can look when it is genuine.

Later, I walked farther down the road and noticed people gathered outside a neighbouring office, talking and sharing casual conversations. I realised once again how distant I have become from most of the world around me. In many ways, I have turned into someone who quietly disappears into his own existence. I spend most of my time writing, thinking, creating stories, and staying away from unnecessary noise. After certain experiences in life, solitude no longer feels temporary; it becomes a way of surviving.

There was a time when I was far more open with people. Life, however, has a way of changing a person slowly. Disappointments accumulate quietly over the years. Losses leave invisible scars. Betrayals alter the way trust works inside the heart. Eventually, many people stop reaching outward and begin retreating inward instead. They learn how to exist quietly, almost invisibly, while carrying entire worlds inside themselves. That is what loneliness often becomes, not dramatic suffering, but silent distance.

When I returned home, I sat down and started watching random videos online. By chance, I came across the trailer for the 2007 film The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Even after all these years, the film still carries emotional power because it speaks about something universal: the fear of an unfinished life.

The story revolves around two terminally ill men who meet in a hospital room and decide to create a list of experiences they want to complete before they die. One of them has wealth but no meaningful emotional connections, while the other has warmth and family but limited time remaining. Together, they begin fulfilling their bucket list and, in the process, discover companionship, purpose, and humanity in each other.

As I watched the trailer, I found myself reflecting deeply on my own life. Years ago, after surviving an accident, I also created a personal bucket list. Facing mortality changes the way a person thinks. It forces you to confront how fragile everything truly is. Suddenly, dreams that once seemed distant become urgent. You begin asking yourself what truly matters before time slips away.

Over the years, I managed to achieve many things that were once part of my own list. Some were personal goals. Some were creative ambitions. Some were emotional journeys I never imagined completing. Yet watching the film today made me realise something unsettling: fulfilling dreams does not automatically protect a person from loneliness.

Perhaps that is one of the most difficult truths in life. Human beings are not only searching for achievements; they are searching for someone with whom they can share those achievements. Success, creativity, travel, recognition, and even happiness lose part of their meaning when experienced entirely alone. In the end, what most people truly desire is connection.

That realisation became even stronger today because something beautiful also happened. An artist whom I deeply admire took one of my poems and transformed it into a song. She composed it, sang it, and gave life to words that once existed only quietly on a page. When she sent me the audio recording, I listened to it repeatedly. Her voice carried emotion with such sincerity that it overwhelmed me completely. Hearing another human being breathe music into something I had written was one of the most moving experiences of my life.

As I listened, I felt genuine happiness and pride. For any writer, there is something extraordinary about watching your work reach another soul deeply enough for them to create something beautiful from it. The song felt alive. It carried emotion, vulnerability, and tenderness in ways I had never expected. It was one of those rare moments when art reminds you why creativity matters in the first place.

Yet in the middle of all that happiness came an overwhelming silence. I realised there was no one sitting beside me to share the moment with.

There was also a time in my life when I believed love alone could save a person from loneliness. I loved deeply and completely, without holding anything back. I gave my loyalty, my trust, my patience, and every vulnerable part of myself to someone I believed would remain beside me through life’s storms. When you love that way, the other person slowly becomes woven into your existence. They become part of your habits, your future plans, your memories, and even your understanding of happiness itself.

When that kind of love disappears, it leaves behind more than heartbreak. It leaves echoes. Certain songs become painful to hear. Familiar places feel haunted by memory. Even beautiful moments begin to feel incomplete because the first instinct of the heart is still to turn toward someone who is no longer there. Perhaps that is one of the cruellest lessons life teaches us: sometimes you can give your entire soul to another person and still end up standing alone with your memories.

Over time, heartbreak changes people quietly. They become more guarded with their emotions. They stop explaining themselves. They stop expecting others to understand the depth of what they carry inside. Eventually, many people begin convincing themselves that solitude is safer than attachment. Yet even after all that emotional exhaustion, the human heart never completely stops longing for connection. Deep down, every person still wishes for someone who will stay, someone who will listen, someone who will simply say, “I’m proud of you, and I’m glad you’re here.”

That feeling returned strongly while listening to the song today. I could not stop thinking about how happy my parents would have been if they were still alive. My father would have listened carefully and smiled with quiet pride. My mother would probably have replayed the song several times and told others about it with excitement. Parents do not always fully understand the technical details of art, but they understand the emotion behind it. They understand what it means for their child to create something meaningful.

Their absence became painfully real in that moment. Grief has a strange way of returning unexpectedly during moments of beauty. Sometimes happiness itself becomes a reminder of who is missing from your life.

What made the day even stranger was something unexpected that I learned later. After being absent from my life for nearly five or six years, my former partner happened to meet my aunt during a funeral gathering and went to console her. Under ordinary circumstances, perhaps such a gesture would seem harmless, even compassionate. Yet life is rarely that simple when history carries emotional scars. There was a time when that same relationship left behind pain, harsh words, and deep wounds that affected not only me but also my family. Because of that, hearing about the encounter stirred emotions I did not expect to feel again.

For a while, I sat wondering why certain people reappear in life after so much silence. Perhaps grief and mortality make human beings reflect on old chapters they once tried to close. Perhaps guilt, memory, loneliness, or unfinished emotions quietly survive beneath the surface longer than people admit. I no longer know the answer. What I do know is that moments like these remind us how complicated human relationships truly are. Some people leave physically yet continue existing as echoes inside memory. They return unexpectedly through conversations, places, funerals, songs, or simple moments that reopen emotions we believed had already healed. In many ways, that realisation connected deeply with the emotions I felt while reflecting on The Bucket List that evening, the understanding that life is filled not only with unfinished dreams, but also with unfinished feelings.

As the evening slowly settled around me, I kept thinking about the deeper message behind The Bucket List. The film is not really about death. It is about companionship. It is about the realisation that people are not meant to walk through life entirely alone. Achievements matter, but shared moments matter more. The memories that stay with us are rarely the grand victories; they are usually the smaller human moments that made us feel understood, loved, or less alone.

Perhaps that is the true meaning of a bucket list. It is not merely a collection of adventures or accomplishments. It is a reflection of what the soul values most deeply before time runs out. For some people, it may involve travelling the world. For others, it may involve creating art, rebuilding relationships, finding peace, or simply experiencing genuine love once more.

As I grow older, I have begun to realise that life becomes less about chasing endless ambition and more about appreciating meaningful moments. A peaceful evening. A heartfelt conversation. A piece of music that touches the soul. A memory that refuses to fade. A person who stays beside you through difficult times. These are the things that ultimately matter.

Today reminded me that life can hold both sorrow and beauty at the same time. It reminded me that loneliness can exist beside gratitude, and that even wounded hearts are still capable of feeling joy. Most importantly, it reminded me that creativity continues to connect human beings in extraordinary ways. A poem written in solitude became a song that carried emotion back into my life when I needed it most.

Even through all the loneliness, heartbreak, grief, and exhaustion, there remains a stubborn part of me that still wants to live fully. Not because life has been easy, and not because the pain has disappeared, but because somewhere deep inside, the heart still believes better days may exist ahead. I still want to experience peaceful mornings, meaningful conversations, unexpected laughter, music that touches the soul, and moments where life briefly feels lighter again. There are still stories I want to write, places I want to see, memories I want to create, and emotions I still hope to feel honestly before my time finally comes.

Perhaps that is the quiet truth many people carry inside themselves but rarely speak aloud. Even after disappointment and loss, human beings continue searching for reasons to stay. We continue hoping for healing, connection, understanding, and love, even when the world has exhausted us emotionally. Deep down, most people are not asking life for perfection. They are simply asking for another chance at peace, another chance at happiness, and another chance to feel that their existence mattered to someone. Maybe that is why, despite everything I have lived through, I still wake up each morning choosing to continue, not out of certainty, but out of hope.

Maybe that is enough reason to keep going.

Perhaps none of us truly knows how much time remains ahead of us. Perhaps all we can do is continue creating, continue feeling, continue loving despite the risk of heartbreak, and continue searching for moments that remind us we are still alive. In the end, the real bucket list may not be about escaping death at all. It may simply be about finding enough meaning, connection, and beauty along the way so that when we finally look back at our lives, we can honestly say that we truly lived.

Jacob Mascarenhas