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I hate resolutions.  Because they so often highlight my failures.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot (lots of spare time with no children in the house and No Job) about living life.  I’m not sure exactly what kicked me into the LIVE THE LIFE YOU HAVE mentality but it may have something to do with my family’s genetic predisposition to lead short, uneventful lives.  Or my realization that my kids are actually going to have memories of their lives from now on.  (Aside: Crap, I’d better stop the calling them STUPIDHEADS and the throwing things…)  Or the realization that money (and worrying about money) will ALWAYS be an issue for us.  And unless Bryan’s secretly the bastard son of an Irish Gazillionaire, we will never get to live a life of leisure, wiling away the time pursuing our interests  like a Kennedy, without having to consider the cost of things.

Regardless of why and how I got here, I have been contemplating what I can do to make our lives interesting and meaningful.  I think everyone has crackpot dreams of “seeing the world” or “doing something important” but I want to identify and work toward achievable experiences.  Too long now I have put off doing things because of the expense, the time investment, the difficulty or the IDEA of how difficult it would be.  Or I have rejected an idea because my kids were too young to understand or appreciate something.  But now they’re not.  Now I am ready.

I have often looked back at the times I threw caution to the wind and DID something as my most fond memories.  I flew across the country to visit my sister with a baby and a toddler (husband and mom/dad/sister/brother in tow).  I coordinated, planned and financed a surprise trip to Vegas for my little sister.  Bryan and I took some opportunities to travel alone.  We flew to Disney one time and another time loaded up the car and drove.  Let me make this clear.  We could not afford these trips at the time.  It was a stretch to do these things.  I do not have an income and Bryan trades the lesser commute, easy hours and lots of time off for SIGNIFICANTLY sucky pay.   But, what seemed like Stupid amounts of money at the moment we planned/purchased the trips in retrospect seems like a small price.  Each one of them hurt our budget.  And we probably shouldn’t have done it.  But I don’t regret any trip we have taken AT ALL.

Of course, we have to balance reality with ideals.  I get that.  Which is why Bryan and I are NOT putting a month-long holiday in Europe on the credit card.  BUT, we can scrimp and save and suck it up and do other things.  So we are going to.

I don’t want o continuously visit the same places over and over.  I don’t want to go to Florida every other year for the rest of our lives.  I want to see the Red Woods.  I want to visit Yellow Stone.  I want to take a cruise to Alaska.  I would like to get to Hawaii.  I want my kids to experience places I have never gotten the chance to see.  I would eventually like to make my way out of the country but at this point, we’re trying to work within our budget.  My goal is to take a Significant Trip every other year and during in-between years, a smallish trip.

It’s all well and good to think about these things, but action is called for if I want to move this from “I’d like to do this” to “I AM GOING to do this”.  So I am monitoring airfares.  And if something pops up (like that $150 RT from my city on the East Coast to Los Angeles–where my sister lives, or the $269 RT deal from my city to Hawaii that I regret not snagging a few years ago) I am going to not think about it too much and Just Do It.  We have started a Big Vacation Fund.  And our spare change, any “surprise money” (like unexpected refunds, etc) and a small regular amount is going in it.  I have my sights set on Yellow Stone first but if something else comes along, I’m going to do it.

And I would like to pursue Living the Life I have Now in a different way.  I truly regret not plowing through grad school after getting my bachelors degree.  I SHOULD HAVE just bit the bullet, sucked it up and kept going.  But I wanted to enjoy working and earning money first.  And then it was always about the money.  Or about the time.  And then I had kids and I assumed that I would slowly work on my masters when the kids were little.  Again, a plan that never came to fruition.

But I have been contemplating changing that.  I have started researching grad programs.  I don’t want to just Get A Masters Degree.  I want to get it in something I would enjoy but still lines up with my Early Childhood Education Degree.  I have narrowed my choices (I think) down to two options…Instructional Technology and English as a Second Language.  Instructional Technology because I am obviously very interested in using Technology to improve education and ESL because I have the perspective of actually being a Second Language Learner (hello Spanish and Chinese).  Not coincidentally, my best friend, Cheyenne, has been considering going to grad school as well and I called her up the other day.

Me: Hey, I know where we are going to grad school.

Cheyenne:  Okay.  Great.  Where?

Me: X School.

Cheyenne: Sounds good.

Silence for a minute…

Cheyenne: What degree are we getting?

ME: X Degree.

Cheyenne: Okay.  Why don’t you just take care of my application when you do yours?

I LOVE that she and I are in the SAME position, here.  Our lives have always paralleled (married, kids within months of each other, etc) and it’s nice that we are both in a position to go through this phase of life together, too.

I’m sure her husband is going to be surprised when he comes home and Chey’s booked a trip to Yellow Stone for them…

So these are just a couple of things I have been pondering lately.  Bryan and I were talking about a friend of ours who is moving into a Big Beautiful House.  And we are kind of jealous.  We live in a small, tiny house.  And we were talking about the kind of life we wanted.  We could work for the Big Beautiful House.  We could make that a priority.  And we might, one day, upgrade to something more sizable and um…weather-tight with more than one bathroom.  But, you know, we aren’t in a position to have both right now.  The life we want (filled with trips and degrees and jobs that allow us a ton of family time) or the house we will always envy.  And it’s OKAY that our friends are choosing the house.  I completely understand and envy them that.  And those friends will create beautiful memories for their kids in that house.  And they may visit Florida every year for the rest of their lives and that Is Perfectly Fine.  But, in reality, they will probably be able to afford both the house and the experiences.  But at this point, Bryan and I can’t.   So I would rather show my kids the country and eventually the world.  And make them take hellish road trips.  And trudge them to national parks they are not going to appreciate.  And whine and cry our way through monuments, experiences and hotel rooms.  Because it’s not necessarily ONLY about the moment.  It’s about looking back and realizing it was worth it.  The scrimping, saving, deciding, doing and working toward.  It’s all about choosing the kind of life I want.  Resolutions, if you will.

Tags: college, decisions, graduate school, Life, money, resolutions, trips, vacation, work

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 1:48 pm and is filed under High Mush Factor, Yadda. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.