All goal is divided into five parts

I am really not the most goal-oriented person ever. I have nothing against setting goals, and certainly nothing against the warm-fuzzy feeling that comes from accomplishing them, but I am almost always in it for the adventure, not the results. Things like graduation have always felt much more like opportunities to reach some sort of personal closure, rather than the celebration of some particular accomplishment.

That said, I think I really need to make some goals here. I am getting to a bit of a crossroads in my life, perhaps more of an emotional one than anything else, but it is prompting a certain amount of soul-searching. So, since I am stretching myself outside my boundaries anyway, why not concretize it with a few goals? My 30th birthday is ambling its way toward me--it's not exactly "just around the corner" yet, but close enough that there's not another year's worth of padding on this side of the new decade. Why not use that as the boundary for the goals, then?

Just for fun, let's divide life into a few funky and alliterative categories: Family! Future! Finances! Fitness! and the last one is going to sound lame however I phrase it, so Fun! seems like the lesser of the two evils (the loser being Friends! which, although it's pretty darn honest, just seems like something that you really can't in good conscience make goals around).

• Family! This one's easy: be the best long-distance aunt that I can. This involves BY NO MEANS forgetting Hailey's birthday, even if I have to tattoo it across the back of my eyelids, and showering her with long-distance attention even when it isn't her birthday. One flesh-and-blood visit belongs in this goal, too.
• Future! Before my 30th birthday, I need to figure out what the heck I am doing after this. That means, concretely, that I need to have either one set-in-stone decision, complete with contract, or two really spiffy, solid options.
• Fitness! This one is relatively easy to come up with as well. Run a half-marathon in September and be in training for a full one. In fact, have signed up for the full one, if I decide to hold off for my next visit to the US.
• Finances! My extended experience with living on practically no money has made me a pretty excellent money manager. My main rule for myself is: live within your means. This means I pay off my credit card in full every month, always have, and I don't buy things unless the money is already in the bank. For this reason my student loan really grates on my nerves. So, goal number four: pay off student loan by my 30th birthday. With what I have managed to save by living nowhere near the hog for the past several months, I could already erase about half of it, and by May I should be able to do the rest. That'll be a load off, plus one fewer bank transaction to remember every month.
• And finally, Fun! This is the one that just feels lame, because a.) you can't beg people to be your friend, and b.) I am a fairly spontaneous person, so planning fun far in advance seems a bit constricting and more than a little pathetic. But I fully realize that I need social stimulation, and lots of it, and many, many people I know and like here are leaving soon. Goal number five: Make two new friends in this town. This will definitely mean being the aggressor, since invitations are just not forthcoming. I will have to choose carefully so as not to overlap work responsibilities with friendships. I'll also need to relax my age requirements considerably (to something like "out of diapers and still breathing"). But I need to do this, so I will.

So. Those are my goals for the next ten months and 17 days. :-) What're yours?