In my recent reader survey, someone said they would like to hear about my overall life direction and where I see myself in the next 3, 5, and 10 years; I decided to write what I see for myself in the next decade because it is hard for me to pin down something that specific. I scratched my head because none of our plans have actually worked out thus far for the better or the worse; I discuss some of my anxiety about that in my monthly bloom series on Youtube.
However, I’d like to think that everything has worked out in the way where we’ve likely learned the most. I’m very much a dreamer, but I feel very vulnerable writing down dreams to share. Even more so, I’ve written this post out a few times and I end up erasing it because I realized I haven’t allowed myself to dream out loud for a long time.
What I see for myself in the next decade
Being a Mom
I hope we have children I can read to and take on play dates. I’ve spent the last decade watching my friends have babies and then have been able to see those little ones develop into their own person. I’d be fine with having two or three children and Devin would love to have four; we’ll see what my emotional capacity for parenting is when we get there 😆. I’ve always found Devin’s love of children really endearing. Children naturally adore him and babies always smile at him. When I am babysitting at our house and he is home, he always ends up taking over and I’m the third wheel. He is going to be a great Dad.
I actually read a lot of parenting books, blogs, and topics and have since my first year of teaching. I enjoy reading up on discipline and praise strategies. I feel less confident about my own abilities, but I’ve learned from my Momma friends that that is pretty normal. I really look forward to seeing our children develop their own interests and hobbies: will they be like ours or will they be completely their own individual? I’d really like to be the type of Mom that can offer my home as a refuge even if it means our kids bring home different kids for dinner all of the time.
Where we live
If we live in our home still, I hope we have remodeled our kitchen so we have more than four feet of counter space; I’ll enjoy the long term rewards of having even more long term friends and seeing my friend’s cute little kids grow up. We don’t want to move much when we have children and so it is important for us to live in a medium to large sized job market. It is also a large priority for us to live somewhere where we have a decent sized religious community of our faith. Atlanta definitely fits all of those requirements and provides us a beautiful and affordable home.
If we move, we’d like to live somewhere smaller than Atlanta. We’ve visited a lot of different places, but what always comes to mind for me is somewhere that has amazing sidewalks + has a lot green space. I would love to live somewhere that has less mosquitoes, less traffic, and better city planning. I would love to live where I can see fields again, but having a short commute for Devin is a high priority for me and I understand that most of these things probably won’t happen together.
What I do know is that I want more of a sense of community than I feel here right now in the next decade. I feel like we’re maybe slowly building it, but us not having children causes a large disconnect from relating to people at church. I feel like other factors with our lifestyle cause a disconnect outside of church: we don’t drink, we don’t spend much, a lot of Devin’s time is spent at working, and a lot of our free time together is spent at church. I’m hopeful of wherever we live that this will improve.
What we’ll be doing
I hope Devin has found a job that is less strenuous and allows him time to have hobbies. We bought a house with a huge garage so Devin could wood work, but the time really hasn’t been there and I’d love to see him get into that again. We haven’t seen much of Georgia and I’d like to feel like a little Georgia expert. I’d really like to finish up seeing all 50 states since we’re so close and go overseas by ourselves to see more (Iceland, Finland, New Zealand, and Australia are high up on the list).
I hope we have grown together even more and have formed a strong spiritual basis for our family. We have some traditions already like going to the Blue Ridge mountains every fall together since we’ve moved here, but I’d like more once we have kids.
What I’ll be doing
I’ll still be blogging and I hope I’m sharing things that people can relate to and that means something; I hope this is more profitable than it is now for me because it is quite a time investment, but even if it isn’t, I know that this is more than a hobby I started in middle school for me. Writing is cathartic to me. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this over the years, but as it is now, I plan on being fairly private about our children when the time comes. However, I have no judgement for people who are more open; I plan on sharing things from my perspective without telling their story.
If career opportunities come up for me in ESL again, which I would love, I want something part-time. I miss the ESL students I worked with and felt like it added a lot of joy to my life. I’m not sure that I’m planning on going back into the school system to teach again, but I’d be open to teaching at a university level or for profit program again.
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My lists of what I would like to do with my life used to be very specific. However, I noticed that I always stopped my goal lists around 30, which is the age I turn this year. I don’t feel like I have a ton of foresight into my life because I’ve made a lot of the biggest decisions for myself already, but I’m optimistic that I will still be learning and growing a lot as a person.
