25: goals
I'm not one to base goals or timeframes around the time between my birthdays from one year to the next. But right now there are a few things on my mind that I want to accomplish in the next year or so, and my birthday was just two days ago, so it seems like a natural delineation. a few brief goals (that aren't, in fact, quickly accomplished):
1. not die while running. or, run at least one mile without having to walk.
This has plagued me my whole life. Even in my earliest memories of gym class in elementary school, running a mile around the fence at Woodland Elementary was the height of "nightmare" to me. I had killer sideaches, was always -- always -- the last one to finish, and so misery bred an overall bad attitude toward that weird hobby, running. After years of staunch opposition and refusal to try, here I am, crazy, out running on Marietta Street with the cars, bikes, and trains, logging in runs to train myself up to 5k distance. Seriously, it would be a huge feat to run one full mile without having to stop and walk. I've never done this in my entire life. And according to the app on my phone, I'm supposed to be able to run three miles within the next 5 weeks. We'll see.
2. write a novel.
Yes, that age-old of goals, write a best-selling novel that sends me out to talk it up at book signings and on NPR, while I become world-famous and a house-hold name. More realistically, write a novel that will sit and be brooded over for many years, improved upon, rejected often by publishers -- but written, nonetheless. I even have a really great storyline. I have the whole thing fleshed out in my mind and in about 40 pages of typed notes and a notebook. (The front reads "Murder Notebook," which Ben added to help myself and others remember the topic on which I'm writing. Yes, it's a murder/cop mystery.) That doesn't make the words come to the page any easier. Writing fiction is terribly hard. But I'm determined to do it. And maybe someday, someone will publish it.
3. make a flying geese quilt.
I love them. I adore them. The more whimsical, the better. I have about a hundred inspiration pieces to work off of, and I just need to settle my creative brain and finish the other projects I have on the radar for the rest of 2012. But 2013, I'm coming for you. It's the Flying Geese year.
This list does not include the multitude of professional goals I have for myself. It's just the hobby, recreational, down-time goals that I plan to use to channel my creativity and generally enrich my life.