Turning 50 two years ago was a really eye-opening moment for me.

The month leading up to that day was stressful and painful. In my mind, I knew what 50-year old people were supposed to be and I wasn’t anywhere near that. 50-year old people were comfortable in their own skin, they had established who they were and they were secure in what they wanted.

I was missing that.

So I have spent most of the last two years trying to work on those things.

I think I am in a better place now than where I started, but I have this dreadful fear that I am never going to achieve my goal.

Part of that is considering things I would like to do still in my lifetime. I don’t call it my “bucket list”, but that’s really what it is.

Some of the things I want to do are sports-related, but not all of them.

If you will indulge me, I’d like to share a few of those things with you.

A third trip to China: It has always been our intention to take our two children back to their homeland to see where they came from and give them a better understanding of what it was like for us to adopt them.

Holly and I really enjoyed a lot of our experiences in China—outside of that first night we spent there in 2010 when I don’t think either of us slept that much.

Most of the people we ran into were friendly, and it is still hard to explain my emotions when I stood in the middle of Tiananmen Square and imagined rows and rows of tents filled with young people—some of whom died in that place.

And of course, The Great Wall of China is breath-taking.

The Grand Canyon: I would like to do a fly-over tour of this natural wonder. I feel that way because I had a friend who toured it that way at a younger age, and he said the sheer “grandness” of it couldn’t fully be appreciated while standing next to just one section of it.

Catch a foul ball at a Cubs game: I have been to over 100 Cubs games, and I have had seats in virtually every part of the ballpark, but I think I have only been in the same section as a foul ball only two or three times.

The closest I ever got was when current Phillies base coach and former Cub Mickey Morandini laced one up my way in the lower level of the upper deck above third base in 1998.

I was explaining to the person sitting next to me (who was not a baseball fan) why fans were booing the pitcher for throwing over to first base to hold a runner close for the fourth time in a row.

In the process of doing that, I turned my head to look at the person — huge mistake.

The crack of the bat was followed by everyone around me gasping and standing as if someone had pushed ejector seat buttons for the entire section.

I knew from the sound that it was not a ball put in play, so I assumed the ball was coming my way. I looked up to find it, but as I did it rattled off the empty seat next to me and into the seats below.

I would have caught it, but I wasn’t looking.

Bring an ice skating rink to Warsaw: This is something I have thought about for a long time, and I am convinced it would be a huge hit. Ice skating is a fun activity and it could be year-round.

My dream is to build a building that would have a regulation-sized rink that could be used for games, local leagues and open skating. It also would be equipped so that it could function as an exhibition hall for boat shows or conventions.

I am not a businessman, so this one is likely to go unfulfilled. But it will always be there.

Of course, there are other things I would love to do and experience that I have no control over—like calling a Warsaw Tiger team winning a state team championship, for example. But if that never happens, I wouldn’t regret it or feel like I missed out. It would just be cool.

But if none of the things left on my list ever happen, how could I possibly feel cheated. This slobbering, stuttering, shy son of a farmer and stay-at-home mom has lived out his dreams far beyond what anyone could have expected.