What is it really all about? Lately it's been the big questions on my mind. There is so much focus on the little things most of the time, but looking down the road is also an important component to life. Yes, I try to enjoy every little thing, and remember the details....but what about creating a vision for a few years....or even decades down the road? It's not about the money, because I am a teacher...so that is not something I obviously aspire to make a lot of. It is not about the ownership of property, although our own little house would be nice...what then?
What goals do we have as a family? Personally? What things are there to accomplish? What is a perfect scenario? What happens if we don't achieve or can't? These are all the questions that have been weighing on my mind lately.
Where do I see our family in a few years? Audrey will be starting school next year, and Violet is growing-up so quick! I envision our family in a new house, with more space and near a community that we can really become submersed in.
What about career? I would like to still be involved in education, although I don't know if teaching is my lifelong goal. Administration has a lot of positives, but also a lot of drawbacks in terms of time consumption and dealing with a lot of negativity, which I don't handle well. Summers are some of my most cherished times, and it is difficult to imagine a life where I don't have afternoons and weekends off to spend with the family....however, impacting lives on a larger scale is something I aspire to, and fining a platform for doing this seems to by my goal here.
What about the kids? Audrey and Violet are quickly becoming brilliant little souls. They will be able to determine their own lives as they grow. However, I want to provide them with an environment that encourages their learning and allows them to experiment and safely fail and use their experiences to grow and learn about themselves and become successful.
Personally, I want to continue living a more active lifestyle, where I am in constant motion and learning to strengthen myself as I age. The prospects of getting older and transitioning into "middle-age" is strange and overwhelming at times. I feel like a little game piece on a giant game board that is moving through the levels and advancing along the board....but I'm sometimes not sure what the objective of the game is, or how I am doing compared to the other players.
Family remains an important piece of the puzzle that is the Orelove family. With family all over the map including (but not limited to) Alaska, Washington, Arizona, Oregon, D.C., Virginia, and Indiana, we want to maintain strong relationships and have more opportunities to visit as the girls get older and become better travelers. We love getting the opportunity to visit or have family visit, but hope to create more time for this, especially during vacation and summer time.
Overall, the next "block" of time will involve moving the family to a position that allows us to grow as a unit, but will also encourage personal development and achievements. I see us living somewhere with enough space to welcome guests in a comfortable fashion, yet not take too much more time to vacuum and clean! Maybe a yard and close to a good park and running.
It is fun to think about the future without having to commit, but it is also important to really imagine and contemplate the things we want to accomplish every now and then. I can't imagine that anyone has lived a "complete" life where everything was accomplished and they left thinking, "Yup, I did it all and am satisfied." That is not my goal, but I do want to make sure we get the big things checked off the list and do the most with what we are fortunate enough to have.
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