2024 Goals
A truncated list of things I love:
Dancing when The Pretenders come on.
Gushing about the dried hydrangea arrangement on the counter at the coffeeshop and the picture of Dani that lights up my phone when she calls while I’m there.
Blue sky, vermillion leaves, Billy Crystal sweaters, Sunday roast with gravy and popovers, hardcover books with thick pages to leaf through.
Sisters and friends. Lovers. Teammates. Clever writers and funny writers and writers so smart I feel gobsmacked reading them.
Sitting on my couch with my hands around a steaming mug those very hands have formed.
Laying in bed with my head over a heartbeat.
Sharing a meal, creating something that didn’t exist before, making people feel cared for, moving my body, soft twill pants and thick wool socks and the kind of floss that’s shaped like a ribbon.
I loved a lot in 2023. I was happier than I thought I could be. Happy in my body, in my house, in my friendships, in my relationships. I knew myself better, I lived more in keeping with that knowledge, and I felt more able to live in the present than ever before. Even hard feelings were easier to wait out.
I usually write my goals after reviewing a lot of things, including my goals for the year before and diary entries and the exact quality of the humors swirling around me as if Mary Shelley herself was watching.
This year, I started with a simpler list of things I love, then some specific ways I can explore, protect, enjoy, and deepen those things.
Then I went back and looked at goals from two years ago. All the things I most love about my life are things I set out to tack towards in 2022: less time for people who make me feel terrible; more time to explore, read, create, and rest; and sunshine more days than not.
So in 2024, my goals are about doubling down on the things I’ve confirmed make me feel the happiest, most fulfilled, most myself: freedom of time and movement and space; gathering people I love close together; creating and appreciating beauty; building my own traditions; telling people I love them.
Goals for 2024
Take care of my body, mind, and feelings. I want to run and go to the gym and play volleyball and go to therapy and journal and walk and get sun on my face. I want to be in the sea and feel like I am in my body. I want to love with my body and appreciate it. Specifically, I want to:
- Keep working through anxiety with the toolkit I’ve developed, and being open to new tools, too
- Continue to evolve a personal style that makes me feel comfortable, sexy, and me
- Run two 10ks
- Win a volleyball tournament
- Heal from injury and otherwise proactively and reactively take care of my body
Consume art and make my own. I want to read a lot of books and see some movies, and continue with ceramics, and write and publish my own work. Specifically, I want to:
- Write 12 new things I’m proud of (no word count goal, but I wrote 18 pieces and 25,000 words total last year; around there would be great)
- Participate in A SmokeLong Summer again to focus on and improve my fiction writing
- Send 150 submissions to lit mags (based on last year’s acceptance rate of about 4%, that’ll get me about six publications, which I also want but can control less.)
- Be nominated for a Pushcart Prize or Best of the Net
- Read my work at an in-person event
- Sell some ceramics pieces and donate the proceedings to
- Read a lot of books
Appreciate and strengthen the relationships and the communities that make life joyful and less scary. I want to love people in the ways they need and tell them what I need, too. I want safety, encouragement, accountability, and love, and I want to provide those things for others. I want to accept that not everything can stay the same forever, be comfortable with the way relationships evolve, and continue to welcome new people into my life in Valencia even as old favorites leave. Specifically, I want to:
- Find a new in-person writing group or partner in Valencia
- Do a retreat with with the Light Brigade in Italy or England
- Host a big Thanksgiving in Valencia
- Host friends often, including my sister and Ben if they have the time
- Be a good partner
- Maintain my boundaries
- Host a couple book parties and several dinner parties
- Make a few new friends
Be in Spain and be at home there. Specifically, I want to:
- See some place in Spain that is new to me (País Vasco? The islands? Asturias?)
- Stay close with, and visit, Valencia friends who find themselves in other parts of Spain (Sarah, Nicky, Inés, Isa)
- Travel some, but mostly to see people I love and mostly close to home; not signing up to stress myself out with emotionally and financially expensive journeys (yes to Cam(s) in London; Greece with Emily and Brin; Antonis many places)
- Stay in my home and make it feel still more mine; improvements to guest room and bathrooms especially
- Pay my taxes and learn about and set myself up for long-term options, i.e. mortgage eligibility
- Prepare for and pass the Spanish C2 exam in May
Do meaningful work. I want to be part of a team and develop my strengths and weaknesses with a variety of projects. I want to not do work I am not inspired by (so no copywriting or branding work). I want to excel at more operational / business-building work and stay in-house with one company. Specifically:
- Hit 125% of last year’s gross income
- Maintain a client safety net
- Excel at a more structured, committed in-house engagement while still being able to live my day to day life flexibility
- Be long-term aligned with my clients (ownership, mutual respect, etc)
I just want to be someone to someone else
And also to myself, and also to the literary canon, and also to you, probably.
The five areas above — health, art, relationships, living abroad, and work — are what I want to make progress on next year. They’re everything. And they’re also small things I can do a bit of at a time.
Today’s wins: stretched the shorter run I was planning to do into one of the year’s 10ks, bought four new-to-me books, loved my boyfriend, caught up with two friends, got sun on my face and tostadas in my mouth and my new favorite pair of pants (courtesy of Marta) onto this beautiful body I get to inhabit.
I love a lot of things, and a checkmark is one of them.
See you tomorrow.
Love,
KP
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