January 4, 2024

I feel very lucky and grateful that my life is pretty close to what I want it to look like in five years. I have a beautiful home that I share with my husband, a dear friend of ours, and our family. In the next 5 years, I would like to really feel settled in here. The house is over 100 years old and there are definitely things that need to be done, in the short and in the long term. We need to do some rewiring. We also need to do some repiping. Both of those will need us to remove parts of the plaster. Knowing those projects need to be done eventually is getting in the way of me repairing cracks in the plaster and painting, but ultimately I think that both of those large scale projects will likely take more than 5 years to do and I don’t want to feel in-between in the meantime. That is one of the things I was hoping for most out of not renting anymore was not feeling like I am constantly just in transition. I want stability.

Stability to me also means financial stability. In the next 5 years, I would like to have more savings and a solid income. I’ve been focusing on my health since Spring 2022 and being out of the workforce for so long has been both very healing and causes me a lot of anxiety. It has been important for me to learn to not tie my self-worth to my finances and my income and I want to carry that lesson forward, but I would like to make more of an income, feel like I’m contributing to our household and savings, and hopefully feel a sense of ease within that stability.

So in 5 years, I would like to be “working” again. That being said, I work a lot now, so perhaps what I should say, is I would like to be earning an income from the work I am doing. I really believe in the work we are doing with the non-profit we founded and I want to expand programming. I’d like to formally register as a 501c3 this year and I think I would like to start applying for grants to support our work and make my focus on it more sustainable.

At the same time, I’d also really like to return to school. I’ve been feeling called to counseling and psychology for a long time. In 5 years, I’d love to be nearing completion of a ph.d. program. I’ve been thinking a long time about whether I should do a psy.d., become an lcsw, or try for a ph.d. I’ve been struggling to determine whether I want the ph.d. simply for ego, or because it is necessary for what I want to do with my degree. I ultimately want to go primarily into counseling, but I don’t want to close the door on research or teaching.

I’d like to have more children in my life in 5 years. I don’t know if I want to be a parent myself, but I would love to be a godparent. My godparents mean a lot to me and were very formative to who I am today. I’d like to play a similar role in someone else’s life. I really believe in the value of intergeneration friendships and support systems.

Perhaps most importantly, I want to continue to improving my health. For the first time since the onset of my RA, my injection appointments have been sneaking up on me. I want to continue figuring out my triggers and my health so that I am in the best health of my life. I’d like to be in full remission. With the progress I’ve made this past year, that feels really possible in a way it never has before.