It is far more difficult for me to identify a goal than to achieve it. My habitually reckless decisions multiplied by nearly 40 year life span resulted in crossing off most of the bucket list items. Showing Europe to parents – check. Buying a two-story house similar to the one I grew up in – check. Having a son – check and check! Even buying a stupidly expensive silk rug – check. The last few items – adopting a child and visiting Rome are in a pipeline. Not bragging, just saying I’m getting old and running out of ideas.
Here in our little Irish home we discovered a small treasure trove of self-improvement books. I’ve been reading some of them to get the ideas for my next goals. Especially now after abandoning law and jumping into being a mom/ wife. Some of the exercises talk about imagining your ideal picture. After much effort, the best I could come up with was having a fun garden dinner with my family and friends. (We’ve had one in Olympia when our Portland friends visited suddenly.) Yesterday, we’ve had a great one with our host, his family, and our lovely neighbor. It was perfect – cute little babies hugging, home-made pizza, funny stories, good wine… I think I’m gonna do more of those when we return home.
Today we received an e-mail from our friend in Castilleja de Guzman. She said she’s met our neighbor (Maria) who asked about us. I really miss Maria and wish I could see her again. We are leaving Ireland in two days and I’m going to miss our quiet little life here, friendly people, and our amazing neighbor. Maybe my next goal should be to produce enough passive income to be able to travel permanently – just to hop around the world and visit all of our friends all the time. Wouldn’t this be great?!