Time Enough and Goals

I just celebrated my birthday, circling ever closer to that 60 mark. So I thought it might be a good time to revisit that 60 before 60 list. How’s that going? What’s gone down in the last year? What have I learned from it?

I’ve learned that I was wildly optimistic about how much I’d be able to travel. 🙂 Still, it’s good to have goals.

Ah yes, goals

Yesterday, my daughter went out the door to work, listening to me talk about book proposals and agents and all that jazz for the upcoming writers conference at which I’ll be teaching.  She sternly reminded me—“Mother, you’re working on your doctorate. And you have a job. Do not start any new projects. You will be insane.”

I agreed.

And then promptly wrote three book proposal one-sheets.

Time is Wibbly-wobbly

Because you see, new projects, book proposals and travel all work kind of the same way. I can say I don’t have the time for them. This could be certifiably true. Yet if they mean something to me, I will find a way to make them happen.

I realized as I sat there contemplating whether or not I should propose anything that the mere act of doing it makes me more likely to follow through. Not doing it means that, for one more year or more, my ideas will sit around collecting cat hair (that’s our form of dust around here) and come no closer to reality.

Will it be hard? Insanely so. Will I still have the same amount of time if I don’t try? Yep. Will I probably fill too much of it with meaningless time wasters if I don’t have a goal and a plan?

Definitely.

I want to complete that #6 on my list—publish three more books before I’m sixty. I can tell myself I don’t have time. Or I can choose to risk putting the idea out there and commit myself to finding the time.

Just like that travel list

I can tell myself I don’t have time to see all the places I want to see. Or I can put them on a list and see my goal in front of me, waiting to be attempted.

So have I knocked some of those travel goals off the list? Yep. #29, a big one. Last month we went to Scotland, land of (at least some of) my ancestors. We spent five glorious days on the isle of Skye.

Is it in our blood?

I’ve learned in the past few years that my dad’s heritage is Scottish and that his name most likely belongs to the McDonald clan. What I find absolutely fascinating about this is that, upon arrival on Skye, I also learned that the McDonald clan were the lords of Skye, and their nickname was “Lord of the Isles.”

I love islands. I love islands with all my passionate little soul. Not just any islands. Rocky, wave crashing, cool wind islands. The kind you find in Scotland. Islands like Skye, which I’ve wanted to visit for as long as I can remember.

Do you think there is something in our blood that calls us to places our forebears began? I didn’t know any of this when I planned the trip. Yet it’s called to me for decades.

God made us so complex, and we haven’t explored the depths of what makes us who we are or what our minds and hearts are capable of. That the “land” calls so many in history might be more a part of us than we know. It’c certainly a big theme in Scripture. I don’t know. I just find it interesting that this girl who loves these places so deeply is descended from the Lords of the Isles. And didn’t even know it.

Tally?

So in the past year, I’ve completed #s:

1. Go sailing. Done. In Santa Barbara while at school this summer. My instructor said that I seemed to use these class times as mini-vacations. I just looked at him like that option should be obvious to anyone. Because why not see what there is to see in a new place?

29. Go to Scotland. Joy.

39. Stand up paddleboard. In Michigan. On Lake Chalevoix. Did I fall in? Of course. But it was fun. I learned something from this, too. It’s OK to try something and decide you don’t love it. Like broccoli, at least you tried. It was fun, but I don’t think I have the stability to make it a thing.

54. See the Tolkien exhibit in Oxford. Original manuscripts. Watercolors of his artwork for the books. Artifacts he touched with his actual hands. Handwriting–that thing modern authors will never leave behind, and it’s sorrowful. My life is complete now. I can die happy.

Also, I was sure punting was on that list. I find it is not. I think we’ll have to make a pinch-hit substitution somewhere. Because we did punt in Oxford, and this man was GOOD at it.

That’s only ten so far. I have a long way to go. But it’s ten more than I might have done if I hadn’t made a list and a goal. Some of them will not come to pass in the next few years. Some of them never may. (Sadly, I found after I made this list that #47 is no longer possible. I’m despondent. Maybe they’ll make an exception if I show them my list.)

That’s OK if some never happen. They’re goals, not mandates. But goals keep us intentional, and that’s a good thing.

So now I think I should go read some classics. Or plan karaoke. Or. . . . #48. There will be no pictures of #48.