This August, I turned twenty-seven. It was a really great birthday. The Sunday before, I went to the county fair with my good friends Megan and Chris. If you know me, you know that I am a big animal lover, and that especially means dogs and farm animals. If we're getting into specifics here, I'll just go ahead and tell you how much I love goats.
My boyfriend got me into goats. That is a hilarious sentence to type, but it's true. He says one time, he was at a fair and a goat was nibbling freely on his clothes, and he thought, I like you. He has showed me the way of the goat over the years. I mean come on, just look at this picture he texted me once:
So my birthday began with goat visitation, and that was alright by me. On my actual birthday, said boyfriend came to visit. We are in a long-distance relationship. He comes to see me about once a week, but he lives in Columbus and our visits are usually only for a few hours. But that is okay. We've known each other for about nine years now, since my very first day of college, and I'd happily live two hours from him if it meant we got to hang out once a week.
Anyway, I spent my birthday with him and Tuney (my dog), and later that night met up with a couple of friends for a beer (literally just one). It was nice. It was low-key. It was just what I wanted in a birthday. When it was all over that night, as I got all comfortable under the covers, I had a moment of clarity. I'm almost thirty, and I have a lot I need to get done! Time's flying by and I need to feel like I accomplished something during the last bit of my twenties. I'm going to make a list of goals. I'm not going to think about anyone else but me when I make this list, and I am going to be as honest as I can be. I feel a little vulnerable here, but I think it will be healthy for me to fully communicate what I want (I have a problem with communication sometimes). Some of these goals will be more serious than others, maybe impossible--and some will be simple tasks I've been meaning to do for a long time. Regardless, here we go:
10 things to do (before I'm 30)
1. Come up with a complete and usable filing system for all of my personal documents.
2. Find a full-time job with a salary and benefits, but one that challenges and excites me.
3. Maintain an emergency savings account that can cover all of my bills for 6 months.
4. Get married.
5. Buy a new car.
6. Save enough money to make a down payment on a home.
7. Decide whether or not I want to go to graduate school, and either start, or stop thinking about it, for crying out loud.
8. Buy a new, high quality, beautiful, comfortable, and structurally sound sofa that I will love for many years.
9. Think about starting to consider the thought of maybe having a baby, maybe. (Eeep! That sounds scary.)
10. Stop being so spontaneous with buying things. Be more purposeful with purchases of clothing, home decor, and grocery lists.
So there you have it, plain as day, written down for all to see. I think I can handle accomplishing some of these goals in the next year. Some of them are going to take a little more time (#10), others need a bit of luck (#2), while even others are so far off that I can't even think about them now (#6)... But it feels really therapeutic to write all of these ideas down, and to get them out of my head. I've been so overwhelmed with "future thoughts" lately that I needed to do something like this.
Do you ever write down your personal goals? What are they? If you have ever accomplished any of my goals, do you have any advice for me?
