That Isn't on My 30th Year Goal List

It's been a while since I checked in on my 30th Year Goals.  Ever since the summer residency my reading and writing efforts have been unimpressive.  Besides a draft of an essay that probably won't ever see the light of day because it's so bad, I've written one poem and a short lyric essay of about 750 words. I've started about half a dozen books, some from my "read ten books list" and then others that have been recommended, but lately all I want to do after the kids go to sleep is hang out on the couch with my husband and watch movies or listen to him play the guitar and sing along.

Part of this is because I've been exercising in the mornings before work, and the wake-up call is early.  By the time the day is over, I'm just plain done with anything that requires brain activity.  I'm rather sure if I picked up a book I'd fall asleep within the first five pages.  Exercising at the gym wasn't on my 30th year list.

I expected weekday writing and reading to drop off with the kids in soccer and implementing date night again, but I had hoped that the weekend reading and writing would ramp up, since my weekend evenings are now husband-free.  Instead, I've watched a lot of romantic comedies. That wasn't on my 30th year list either.

I think the next time something comes up (like laundry or dishes), I'm going to let my husband/boss/friends/church/family know that I'm exempt because it wasn't on my 30th year list. Sorry! :) Of course, neither was sleeping, so maybe my body will pay attention if I tell it to stop spending 1/3 of every 24 hours doing nothing.

The good news is that I'm not in a binding contract with my 30th year list of goals.  They are goals, not vows, after all.  I also wrote the list in January, and it's amazing how much changes in the course of ten months.  I didn't know that Pruning Burning Bushes would be published this year or that I would be trying to schedule readings from it this fall.  If I had known that, I might have added something about my book to the goal list.  I also didn't know that we would become such foodies, losing weight and feeling better in 2012.  Can I retroactively add goals to the goal list so that I can check them off?  Absolutely! 

In general I feel good about the status of my goal list for 2012.  We're making progress in most areas, and the areas I'm not are at least on my radar or in "continuous improvement."  We have a ways to go in the credit card debt area but we have a plan, at least.  Bible study and daily quiet time looks more like frantic random prayers on the treadmill, spurts of conversation with the Holy Spirit in times of stress and thanksgiving, and the occasional deep breath appreciation of nature/family/seasons/life. 

The marathon or half-marathon idea is eliminated from the list; I laugh just reading it.  Sometimes you have to approach your goals realistically within the framework of real life in order to find balance.  I don't aspire to be a marathoner, and my guess is that it is hard to be a marathoner plus anything else.

I am glad that I didn't say "write 12 good poems" or "write 6 publishable essays."  I've surpassed 12 poems, though who knows if any of them are any good.  I'm close to six essays, maybe seven if I count the really bad one that won't ever see the light of day, and I'm way beyond that if I include the short essays and articles I've written for a few different blogs this fall.  This makes me feel better about myself but it also makes me wonder if I shouldn't have had a higher goal in mind.  Meh. I think instead of raising the bar in quantity, I can spend the rest of 2012 working on quality.

This has been a great exercise this year. It's something I've kept in the back of my mind, and having a place I can refer back to in order to see how I'm doing has been really handy.  It's helped me to keep perspective when I don't feel like I'm accomplishing much besides living, which should be enough, anyway.  I think that contentment and ambition don't have to be mutually exclusive.  It's possible to strive toward goals and be content, and whether ambitions succeed or fail should not shatter that contentment, especially when there's so much around us to be grateful for.

Things Left on the 30th Year List:

• cut our credit card debt in half (unrealistic at this point in the year, but pushing forward anyway)
• blog once a week (average isn't too far off)
• incorporate Bible reading and prayer into daily life more
• read ten books (eight down? I think?)

Not too shabby.  Maybe I can take the rest of 2012 off once I finish my reading list. 

The Road Ahead: Fall 2012 Outlook

We had a great weekend with the kids here in Ashland, the last weekend before Brandon goes back on the road for football season.  It feels a little bit like a storm front is on the horizon. There's only a few more hours of daylight to soak up before hunkering down inside for the long night of lightning and thunder. 

It isn't that bad, really, it's just different from what we've been used to for the last three months or so. It's much faster paced, more scheduled, more demanding, more exhausting.  Summer is over.  I am taking deep breaths and long sighs; I am mentally stretching and flexing for the quickened pace.  I'm out of practice, haven't trained for the coming marathon. 

So tonight I went for a run after Elvis's late birthday party, after our parents left and the kids were bathed and ready for bed.  I didn't take my phone, didn't wear headphones, knew that if I ran through King Ridge and back toward campus it'd be about three miles or so, a solid 30 to 45 minutes.  I haven't run since July 9 but I figured if I took it slow enough I could make the distance. 

Sometimes I have to run without music in my head; it invites the kind of plodding out of thoughts and emotions and prayers that require pounding feet and even breaths, and as I rounded corners I welcomed the stream of conscious ponderings. 

I made some commitments to myself about exercise (before work), about date night (probably once every other week, maybe once a week), about how to handle the evenings when BW is out of town (friends and wine and when they aren't available, writing and books), and I made some concessions about time and weeknights.

Let's face it: turning thirty doesn't just mean I get to feel like the adult that I am a little bit more.  It also means I have three children who require, demand, and deserve my time and attention from 5 p.m. until they go to bed at 8 p.m., whether that means carting them off to soccer practice (which will take place four out of five weeknights the first few weeks-- gah!) or just skipping out on the temptation to commit to a dozen non-children oriented evening activities.

With Brandon leaving town Thursdays or Friday mornings and returning late Saturday or Sunday each week, I have to admit to a weight pressing down on my chest right now, a wearing down thinking about just me and the kids those days and nights.  I love the time I get to spend with them on the weekends, love going places and doing things with just the three of them, but I also know what it's like when it's all of us during the summer, when we're a less scheduled and stressed family unit.  And I know Saturday morning soccer standing in the cold wet with a toddler and a preschooler.  And I know packing up the kids for church and standing in the pew alone.  And I know family gatherings with me and the kids, taking pictures and sending them out to Facebook so he can see them.  I don't want him to go.  I miss my husband already and he's sitting eight feet away.

Now that I've finished throwing myself that little pity party, bawling and sobbing and causing Brandon to worry about his crazy little wife and her sudden eruption, let me say too how grateful I am for this work and that it is important for our family, financially and strategically, that he has this work and this schedule so one of us can be at home with the kids any time we're needed.  This is important and good for them, especially good for Henry, and maybe in a few years when he's in school things will be different, but until then, it's so great that Brandon can be here for Elvis and Henry during the day.  It's so great that we can both parent our children, even if it is in shifts.  It's so great to be able to work off some of the debt that we keep piling on and then chiseling away at.  It's so great to be blessed with jobs at all, let alone jobs we enjoy and are proud to do.

Running is a lot like writing, the outcome is unknown (exhausting or satisfying), both require an undistracted block of time, and both take you routes you might not have traveled otherwise.  Both always lead me home.

"Sow your seeds in the morning, and at night let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well." Somewhere in Ecclesiastes

May Days

The River Teeth Nonfiction Conference wrapped up nicely this weekend.  I don't think we could have asked for a better experience (save for, perhaps, the mice... I could have done without the mice incident).  For a taste of what happened, visit the River Teeth website, where I've posted a few videos from the panels and presentations.  I didn't know how to zoom in as I was operating the camera (boooo) but the audio is what people care about anyway, right?

This last week, Henry has started to nod yes and shake his head no, indiscriminately.  He has also started to point.  This is a step up in the communication department for him, even if he says yes and no to anything you ask, and it is so entertaining to ask him questions.  He understands that something is being asked of him and he ought to reply.  Such a delight, he is. 

Our patio project is progressing - we now have the paver sand tamped and started to lay down bricks, except, like last time, we forgot that the square bricks are about a third less thick than the rectangular bricks, which means we need to fill in the spots where the square bricks go with a little more paver sand.  It's a tedious process, but it's better than spending the next five years stubbing our toes on bricks that protrude from the patio.

Lydia and Elvis wrap up the school year this coming week - we are all looking forward to summer and the freedom to come and go and stay up later and sleep in (ha).  I started running again the other day and hope to work my way back up to the Ashland Balloonfest 5K.  I did two miles at a horribly slow pace, mostly because I'm still nervous about my knee and its tendency to ache afterward, but it wasn't too bad. 

The good news I have to share is that my essay, "Those Summers, These Days," which appeared in Ascent, will be listed as a notable essay in this year's Best American Essays.  Woo hoo!  I'm still beaming about this news.  I have another essay I've just started that could prove to be a real challenge, on self-image, insecurity, boys/men, daughters, and lots more.  I made a bulleted list of topics I think could fit in this essay.  Now I just need to write it.  Just.

My Thirtieth Year

As something of a kick-off to my 30th year and my mom's 50th, we ran a half-marathon back on December 3.  It was cold but dry and sunny, and we finished!  Now, I have ambitions to run a marathon with one of my good friends (who is also turning 30 this year) in May, but I'm not sure whether my knee can hold up - it hasn't felt right since the half-marathon.  Also, there's this thing about time commitment.  I enjoyed the structure and discipline required to train for the half-marathon.  Someone plotted out the miles I needed to run and which days I needed to run them, and I did it.

No one does this for me for writing.  Nobody sends me a schedule and says, SWells, sit down and give me 20 pages, and tomorrow, I want 20 more.  Plus, the time I've dedicated to running has filled any time or energy I had for writing.  I want to run this marathon (I think I do, anyway... I'm suffering short-term memory loss from the half-marathon).  But I also want to write, now that I've gotten a few essays done, toward a book-length manuscript.  I'd like to make year 30 the year I finish it, but that might be too ambitious.

There's a few other things besides writing and running I'd like to have happen in Year 30:

• take a family vacation
• go on a fancy date with my husband
• go line dancing at least once
• take Lydia and Elvis on two special one-on-one "dates" each
• cut our credit card debt in half, with a two-year goal of being credit card free by our 10th anniversary
• blog once a week
• read ten books
• run a marathon (maybe... at least another half-marathon)
• write six or more essays toward the manuscript
• incorporate Bible reading and prayer into daily life more
• write twelve new poems

My immediate goals for 2012 are to get well - this sinus infection needs to go away - and to survive the next week of Brandon being out of town.  He's had a lot of work lately, and I'm ready for him to be home and around more.

Thirty years old July 30.  This is a crazy life.  I wonder what challenges and opportunities God will give us in 2012.