Life & Place · A Decembers list
The times you jumped before you thought it through
There was a quarry, or a rope swing, or a ramp somebody built out of plywood and cinder blocks. Somebody said you wouldn't. And then, for about four seconds, you were the bravest fool in the county.
This is the list for those four seconds. One line for the dare, one for the landing — and a little more when the story still earns it.
Free to start. Private from the first word.
Where this list lives
This is a list in Decembers — the place a life gets written down one question at a time.
Decembers asks the questions no one thought to ask, keeps the answers in one permanent Chronicle, and holds them on one Timeline that reads in order. You answer. Decembers does the writing.
- Lists
- A list for every kind of life, and every turn one takes. Pick one and start answering.
- Timeline
- Your answers arrange themselves in order. Seeing a whole life laid out this way is something else.
- Inner Circle
- Not social media. The few people you name are the only ones it is ever shared with.
Begin with one list. The rest follows.
One line is enough
Write down the rope swing and you'll remember the exact fraying spot on the rope, the boy who dared you, and the way the creek smelled cold even in July.
Nobody wrote these down at the time. There was no reason to — you survived, you laughed, you rode your bike home for supper. But the dare you took at fourteen is the kind of thing that gets sanded smooth over fifty years of retelling, until only the punchline survives and the fear is gone. What's lost is the part that mattered: the half-second where you actually decided, and the shaking that came after.
A memoir would make it sound braver than it was, or dress it up with a lesson. A list won't let you. One line asks only what you did and how you felt when your feet hit the ground. That honesty is easier one moment at a time — the ramp behind the school today, the motorcycle you shouldn't have opened up tomorrow. The people who come after you have never once pictured you reckless. Let them.
How it works
- 01
Pick this list
It’s waiting, already written. There is no blank page to face.
- 02
Fill in what comes
A year, a line, a photograph. Five minutes or an hour.
- 03
Invite who was there
They add what you forgot. You decide what stays.
- 04
Share it, or don’t
One quiet page for your Inner Circle. No link, no feed.
The kinds of jumps that end up here
The ones where nothing went wrong
You cleared the ditch, you hit the water clean, you walked away grinning with your heart going like a jackhammer. These are the ones you tell at parties. Write down what you were actually thinking in the seconds before, because the story you tell now has probably left that out.
The ones that went sideways
The bent rim, the sprained ankle, the stitches you explained away to your mother. Something didn't go the way you pictured, and you found out fast that adrenaline doesn't check the depth of the water first. These are worth keeping honestly — the wince is half the story.
The ones you'd never do again
Looking back, you can see exactly how it could have ended, and it makes your stomach drop a little. You did it anyway, once, when you were young enough to think you were made of rubber. Say plainly whether you regret it, or whether you're quietly glad you were that person once.
By the age you were when you did it
- Grade school
- The homemade ramps, the tallest tree, the dare you couldn't back down from because the whole block was watching.
- High school
- Water towers, quarry jumps, and the first time a car was involved and speed became the whole point.
- Early twenties
- The motorcycle, the cliff dive on vacation, the dare taken to impress someone you were sweet on.
- Thirties
- The skydive, the whitewater trip, the thing you did to prove to yourself you still had it in you.
- Forties and up
- The zip line, the ski run marked expert, the moment you surprised your own kids by saying yes.
- Anytime
- The one you've never told anyone, because you know exactly how close it came to going wrong.
Other lists you may like
Start with any one of them. Every answer lands on the same Timeline.
Begin
A record that you were, at least once, gloriously reckless
Your people know you steady and sensible. Start with one jump — the rope swing, the ramp, the leap you can still feel in your knees — and show them who you were before you knew better.