Paul and I celebrated ten years of marriage last week. Right now, of course, we are not physically together. But thankfully, we are emotionally on the same page. Extended time away does strange things. First, it rips you apart. It has to. He has to be there. I have to be here. We have to keep moving forward and live our separate lives or else we will collapse into separate heaps on the ground. (The heaps are easier in the short run but a nightmare in the long run.)
But after the initial break apart, if you are lucky enough to have contact, you get to re-knit together your relationship. And because of the distance, the only way to do this through talking. Or, if you're us, mostly texting.
We have sent tens of thousands of texts these past few months. And one of them, in early April was me to Paul..."what do you think about coming up with ten goals for the next ten years of our marriage." Paul responded "okay. like I pick 5, you pick 5?" me: "just send me your list and I'll make mine."
We texted each other our lists and went back and forth for an afternoon. Adding, subtracting, combining, expanding and inspiring the other with another idea. I stayed up late making a rainbow google doc and sent Paul a screenshot (and of course an invite to edit).
TEN GOALS FOR THE NEXT TEN. Many with subcategories.
We want to visit tons of national parks. We want to put more solar on the house. We want to see a total eclipse together. We want to perfect some of our favorite meals including homemade fish tacos. We want to open up our living room with a balcony. We want to eat eggs from our own chickens and avocados off our own trees. We want to throw each other 40th birthday parties. We want to snorkel and zip-line and run a race. We want to donate money. We want to put away money for retirement.
We want to keep building our life.
We spent our first ten years of marriage laying the foundation. We accomplished a lot of the goals we had talked about when we started dating in our early twenties. We began our careers. We had our kids. We moved into a home where we plan to stay.
And now, we find ourselves in a phase of life that we never discussed. We are past the beginning. We are in the great and spectacular middle. If we are dreaming, where could we go from here? What do the next ten years look like?
Right now they look like a global pandemic and most likely an extended-into-2021-deployment –– which is terrible –– but it's not always going to look like this. This is going it end. And until it does, dreams and spreadsheets are quarantine approved.
We picked our goals by loosely working through the framework I laid out in December (read those newsletters here). First, reflection: what happened in the past ten years (WOW. A LOT.) Second, how do we want to feel in the next ten? (Settled, satisfied, excited & on permanent vacation*.) Third, what can we do to achieve those feelings? (So many things.)
And those things became the goals. Some we will start next summer. Some will take the full ten years. We will space out the big stuff. Each year we will try to take family photos and visit a national park. Most years we will donate more and save more.
I blurred the specifics for many of our goals because I think the concept is more important than our personal plans. It's possible you might want to do something like this. When I shared the above image on Instagram I got DMs from folks who loved the idea but don't think their partner would be on board.
I posted a response that I stand by: "[if your partner isn't into this] then you do it for you. Make the list and bring it to your partner and say: 'hello. I love you. I want to show you something that is important to me. I know you don't care about this stuff but you care about me, so will you work on this with me? I will lead the way, but I would love your support.'"
But also, I would add this: if you are in a relationship, you already have shared goals. You may share a goal to stay together. You may share a goal to have kids. You may share a goal to not have kids. You may have kids, so you are currently sharing a goal to raise those kids. You may live together, so you are currently sharing a goal to keep the rent paid and the lights on. You may frequently need to eat dinner, so you are currently sharing a goal to keep food in the house.
You may not have a spreadsheet or a long text chain, but you're already doing this. You're already working together and communicating. You're already planning and troubleshooting. In many life seasons (like...perhaps this crisis-filled one we are in) that's enough.
But, if this is interesting to you, and you want to, you can come up with a one year or five year or ten year plan and set some fun goals to also work towards during your relationship too. Even if you have never done this! Even if your partner has never expressed interest!
Until a few weeks ago, Paul and I had never done this! Paul likes big life goals but doesn't usually break it down for little things. He doesn't need a spreadsheet and he certainly doesn't care about how flawlessly I executed that rainbow blend.
Paul and I care about each other. We care about working toward something together...even if (especially if?) we have no idea what the future holds. We care about nurturing common interests. We are both anxious to be back together and this was such a fun exercise while we wait for that. It will be an overwhelming gift when we can actually start doing some of this stuff.
A final note on execution...an important part of creating a long-term plan is coming up with action items that you can work on today. Make sure after you write down your plan you come up with something tangible to do. (Maybe it's planting an apple tree in your back yard. Maybe it's putting a jar on your counter to collect loose change. Maybe it's painting your front door a cheery yellow.) This is a hard season for "action items," I know, so if you're overwhelmed remember this: if we're lucky, the middle will be long. It's okay if this takes awhile.
