Quarterly Goals Check-In #2!
No part of me—not my brain or my passport or the now-shabby black Nikes I’ve worn for over 150 of the last 180 days—can quite believe that time has come for a second quarterly goals check-in. (And if we’re being entirely accurate and accountable, which is kind of the point of this whole thing, that it’s actually two weeks past due.) The time in between writing the last one from my convalesce bed in the Sacred Valley and now feels like it’s been about nine days, though in fact it’s been three months, three countries, and two continents.
After six and a half months following my original itinerary, I’ve left South America and with a return victory lap through Buenos Aires with Diego (more on this later, I promise), I packed up, took the longest flight of my life, and reunited with my sister Marta in New Zealand.
It’s day two of our almost-month together. Day one was spent watching the entire first season of Lovesick (could not recommend more highly; also it’s only three hours long so you get all of the sick satisfaction of binging a show without actually starting to dissolve into your couch), eating copious amounts of dumplings, and going to bed at 7:30 p.m. after fighting off jet lag with jaunts around peak Auckland whimsy (including a trip to an all-local, all-recycled goods store whose featured stock included vintage jean jumpers, pastel-colored menstrual cups, and natural-sourced tattoo balm). Today, we checked off every conceivable carb and/or sugar craving either of us might’ve left unsatisfied in recent months—bagels (one with chili powder, hummus, lemon oil, basil, and tomato: very good, others with peanut butter and cream cheese, respectively: quite a poor showing), a Wendy’s Frosty and (obviously) an order of fries to dip into it (somehow less delicious of a combo than either of us remember), bubble tea (why are tapioca balls so filling?), cream-filled doughnuts bursting with fresh bananas, and soft pretzels (which tasted rather like pizza dough dipped in sea salt; they missed the Auntie Anne’s buttery-smooth crust we were hoping for but were still delicious). In between eating, we walked along the Auckland harbor, took in Queen Street, and had time to watch two more seasons of Lovesick. And I had time to reflect on the goals I set for my trip, how I’m progressing against them, and how the next three months of my trip will be different than the seven months before them.
So let’s begin.
Goals around getting to know the world:
1. Go experience the world. Simple enough. Explore, try new things, take advantage of my youth (in all its healthy, obligation-free glory). How? Spend a significant amount of time (at least 6 months) traveling slowly through some part of the world that I haven’t been to and that’s not much like home
Still a win. I’m still doing it. This time all the way from Oceania! I’m still under the assumption that at some point, I’ll get tired of this all, but that hasn’t happened yet. Though New Zealand winter might be pushing me towards it…
2. Meet and get to know new people. Be friendly, ask questions, don’t assume I know anything about anyone. How? Travel alone, forcing my extroverted self to find connections around me, and stay in lots of different types of accommodations with lots of different people—airbnbs, hostels, Workaways, etc.
Definitely a win. Probably even more so than it was six months ago. I’ve now added on a Galapagos family along with my Uruguay one, I’ve fallen in love, and I spent six week jaunting around Colombia with a bunch of wonderful, beautiful people whose weddings I’ll be real pissed if I’m not invited to.
Part of all of the above has been luck, but also being open-minded (more so than before) to new people and experiences, consistently curious, and brave—putting myself out there and seeing what comes of it. If anything, I’m a little worried I won’t meet as many new people this month as I travel with Marta and that I’ll forget all about solo travel and how to make connections with others—but I have two months here alone alone after she leaves, so I’ll get to use those muscles again.
Next, goals around getting to know myself:
3. Figure out if I like writing / storytelling as much as I think I do and if I need to be in a career that is more directly tied to it. How? Write at least an hour a day, every day, on a variety of topics and in a variety of forms and see how it makes me feel
Sadly, sadly, still half credit. Not much has changed here since last time. I’m still loving storytelling and writing, I still haven’t written any fiction of my own, and I still don’t write for an hour a day, every day. I particularly didn’t do that when I was frolicking around Colombia with the dream crew. I have been reading a lot more about craft, though, so that’s at least something?
Though one of the things that absolute everyone says—I’ve read it from Roxane Gay and Ann Patchett just in the last two weeks—is that habit-forming is the best way to become a writer, and then, once a writer, to improve. You just have to do it. Though, as already confessed, I haven’t done it, not in the way that I want to. Which gets back to what I wrote about in Bariloche—if you are what you do, I am not a writer first. I may be a traveler, a consumer of way too many desserts, a TV drama appreciator. I am a writer second. I have chosen to do so many other things before doing an hour a day of writing. And oftentimes, those things are furthering my other goals—to explore a place, to make new friends, to get outside of my comfort zone. But that means that my goal to be a disciplined writer has suffered.
So I’ve recently started to build in more avenues to force myself to do the damn thing. I created an account on a freelance writing site, and have already gotten and completed my first two jobs—beta reading a fantasy manuscript and writing a story synopsis, and rewriting an absolutely terrible romance manuscript (elevating it to only slightly terrible). It’s nice to see a deposit in my account instead of only expenditures, and it’s been a rush, realizing I can pretty easily make money writing. I want to start writing the things I now know I enjoy—creative nonfiction, essay writing, character sketches—for a few magazines and blogs. I’m brainstorming pitches and getting excited to see what comes of that.
So while the prognosis going forward is positive, this goal still remains at half credit for the last 3 months.
4. Create a portfolio that showcases my creativity and drive (so that by having it + a traditional resume I can tell the full story of myself). How? Design and manage this lil blog
I think this is still a win. In my first three months of traveling, I posted 16 blogs; these last 3 months have seen only 8, but they’re longer and more involved. I’ve found more of my voice and figured out how to share it. I still haven’t been writing poetry or short fiction and sharing it here, but I’ve decided I don’t want to, and I’m still happy with what I’m putting out there.
Though I do think maybe I should learn more website coding / maintenance and update some of the little bits of the blog I don’t love. That’ll be the goal for next quarter.
5. Stress test my values and the things I think I want out of life. How? Write down what I think those things are now and compare them at the end of my traveling to what I think then, constantly try to see things from others’ points of view, live little experiments in the various places I find myself
After six months, I can feel some real distance between who I was and who I am. Still the same, at the core, but way less fixated on a more traditional (at least by my culture’s standards) definition of success. Way more comfortable with ambiguity. Way more easily made happy. That’s not to say that I’ve lowered my standards, but I have learned to appreciate all the beauty and luck and happiness in my life. I’ve continued down the path I found myself on three months ago, where I realized how much joy I get from being surrounded by good people, learning something, and trying new things. And it’s pretty easy to fulfill those wishes while traveling around the globe. I still haven’t figured out what my future will look like when I run out of money—will I find a job that lets me work remotely and keep exploring new corners of the world, will I return to my country and what I know and save again for another big trip, will my Spanish be good enough to let me work for a South American company and post up in one of the cities I’ve fallen in love with there? And other things I thought I knew about myself and what made me feel fulfilled—for instance, that I could never work on a remote-only team because I love being around others way too much and can’t be productive on my own—aren’t entirely true, and that I’m more versatile than I thought I was.
It’s like this: I still want to be the best and produce excellence, but now I have a much broader definition of what sorts of things I’m interested in applying myself to.
And last, goals around maintaining my current world & self:
6. Maintain my relationships with my family, friends, mentors, coworkers and stay a part of their lives. How? Check in with them, write to them, share stories with them, remember birthdays and anniversaries and celebrate them, even if I’m away from home
Again, I think this is still a win, but will really only be put to the test when I get home and feel out how all my relationships have evaluated. I have learned that the literal birthday maintenance is tough—I used to have a note on my Macbook with everyone’s birthdays and had a reminder to look at it on the first of every month, but I somehow had both the note and the reminder only saved locally, so if I wasn’t on my computer on the first of the month (which I often wasn’t, and then now never am, since it broke), I didn’t review it. Which meant I was behind the ball on some birthdays of people I really truly do care very deeply about. So I have to fix that.
I am learning a great deal about meaningful relationships in general—about how to give and ask for space, but also how to ask for attention and engagement when I need it. How to balance the line between knowing relationships will last without daily maintenance and creating so much distance that it can’t easily be crossed.
7. Keep my “nest egg” savings for getting an apartment / car / wardrobe for if/when I want to come back and pick up life, or if something unplanned happens. How? Literally do not touch my second savings account
Still a win for now, but with danger on the horizon. Or maybe not, if you look at the way I’ve worded this, and decide that “continue travels for another year” falls under the “something unplanned” clause. I haven’t yet touched my second savings account, and have by-and-large been spending roughly $50/day on travel as intended; I still have enough money in my travel fund to finish out this year of bouncing around the globe (particularly if I continue saving money in New Zealand with things like FARMSTAYS, though hopefully not actually more farmstays).
But I’m thinking about continuing to travel next year; Diego and I want to do Central America after he finishes up his degree in Buenos Aires. And so I’ll either be applying that nest egg / new life savings to starting a new version of life in Buenos Aires and/or further Latin America travels, or I’ll find a way to make money and fund myself as I go (lots more romance novels headed to my desk, maybe?). We’ll see. I know that money is choices and I’m still glad to have that money there, as it keeps open a lot of possibilities for me.
8. Continue my literary education. How? Read a book or two a month (at least!) and write about them—how they made me feel, what they taught me
A win! My book count for year 24 is 57 (with three weeks til my birthday, when the clock resets). And I’ve continued journaling along the way. Lately, I’ve been reflecting a lot about my process of finding, reading, and reflecting on literature. There’s obviously a great deal of selection bias in terms of what even makes it to my plate—I’m especially swayed by the Man Booker longlist—and I’ve been wondering how my reactions to different authors or works depends on what lens I see them writing from. Example: I was reading Ann Patchett’s This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage and found myself finding some of her essays extremely pedantic and irritating. But would I have felt the same if were Jonathan Franzen? Why does Kate Atkinson not have a Booker nomination, and did I find Life After Life less impressive because I knew that? Even though I was blown away by David Mitchell’s Bone Clocks which is basically equally impressive re: plot machinations?
9. Stay healthy. How? Work out 3x a week (hikes count! Kayla counts!), get health insurance, get fully vaccinated before I go and go to the doctor if I get sick
Definitely downgraded to a fail for the last three months. Workouts fell off, Colombia was too hot to hike more than a few times, and I went out for pizza way more than I did Kayla. Like, six to seven times more. (I realize I didn’t explain this well for the uninitiated: Kayla Itsines is a trainer who has a series of video workouts offered through an app called Sweat.)
Andddd I accidentally let my travel insurance coverage expire two days before I had to go to the doctor in Bogota, thus giving me no hope of getting even some of my $250 bill back. Stupid.
But! I have been thinking a lot over the last three months about how I define health, what my relationship with my own is, and what I think the ideal public health set-up would be. I started writing a piece on it and hope to have it up soon.
OVERALL
A lot of what I set out to do on this trip is changing, at least for the next few months. I’m not traveling alone, I’m not traveling somewhere that’s out of my comfort zone. I’m not traveling particularly cheaply and I’m certainly not writing as much as I wanted to…but I feel okay about it.
Because my second goal, the one about meeting new people, and my sixth goal, about maintaining the relationships I have, are the most important ones. My life is rich and secure and meaningful because of the quality of my relationships. And what I get to do right now with Marta is something that is so important to me—investing in spending time with someone I love. Even when I want to kill her. And when I go to Buenos Aires in a few months and spend more time with Diego there, I’ll be investing in that relationship, and I’m excited for that, too. And later I’ll go back to focus on the whole gamut of goals, but for now, I’m happy knowing the most important ones are well-covered.
I do need to get into more a routine, though, over these next three months. This is life, not just an extended vacation, and I need to take care of my brain and my body better than I have been. So I’m telling myself and you that I am going to be serious, at least while I’m in New Zealand, about the writing and the working out. And about keeping up with my Spanish—I know that was explicitly not a goal in the beginning, but I’ve already invested so much time and effort in it, and I don’t want to backslide. I figure that everyday living is so much easier here in a world where I can easily charm shopkeepers and make small talk with Couchsurfing hosts without freaking out about being misunderstood. All that extra energy and stress needs to go somewhere! So I’d like to reinvest it back in Spanish practice.
Another three months of living my actual dream: let’s go!
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