A Home Base Reflection
The Things I Thought I’d Be Ready For by Now
A week or so ago, I got a reminder from my Trello board.
There was no urgent deadline attached to it. No project that had to be completed that day. But definitely something that I wanted to look into.
It was simply a reminder that I had apparently decided, earlier this year, that Labor Day would be a good time to check in on some of the things I wanted to work on around my home.
And my first thought was basically:
I had completely forgotten about it and that it was already time to re-evaluate these projects.
Or maybe I had not forgotten so much as life had simply moved along, and that particular checkpoint had gotten buried underneath everything else.
But once I pulled it back up, I started looking through the goals and projects that I have continued to re-evaluate and push back. It was another reminder of:
When you make plans for your future self
There is something interesting about making goals several months in advance.
At the time, you are not just making a list of things you want to accomplish.
You are imagining a future version of yourself.
You picture where you will be, what you will have the energy for, what you will have figured out, what projects you will have started or finished.
Instead, I looked at the list and realized that quite a few of those things are still sitting there.
Some I still want to do, but they clearly are not happening on the timeline I originally imagined. Another few projects I continue to go back and forth about, and I am not sure I even want to do them anymore.
Even at some point down the road, is it worth my energy, time, and other resources?
That realization can be a little uncomfortable.
Because it is very easy to look at an old list and immediately turn it into evidence that you are behind.
I should have done this by now.
I thought I would be further along.
Why haven’t I gotten to this yet?
What happened?
But I am trying not to look at it that way.
Maybe the timeline was the part that needed to change
The goals themselves are not necessarily wrong.
The timeline might be.
And there is a difference.
There are still things I want to work on in my home. There are projects I would love to tackle. There are ideas I have for making the space feel more like mine.
Those things have not suddenly become unimportant just because I did not accomplish them by Labor Day.
Maybe I simply needed more time.
Maybe other things took priority.
Without question, when some of these goals came to light, I underestimated how much time, money, energy, or attention some of these projects would require. But also, life happened. Unexpected costs, unexpected travels. I do not regret anything that I have said yes to over the last few years. But, it has certainly impacted my home goals.
It’s funny how easy it is to think about what we want, but forget about the past. Where we are coming from. Things that have happened which may not live as a top or important moment in terms of memories. But, definitely have had an impact on where I am.
A checkpoint does not have to become a deadline
I think this is the part I am taking away from the whole experience.
I can look at the list.
I can see what has changed.
I can take a few minutes to remember everything else that has happened along the way.
I can remember the life choices (and circumstances outside of my control) that have happened.
I can decide what still matters.
I can move some things to a later date.
I can take some things off the list completely.
And I can keep working toward the things that still feel right without turning the original timeline into some kind of measure of whether I have succeeded.
Because the truth is, I had set some of these goals for a version of myself who I thought would exist by now.
And she does not quite exist.
At least, not yet.
But that does not mean she will not.
Maybe she just needed a different timeline.
And maybe that is something worth remembering the next time I open my Trello board and find a reminder from a version of myself who was trying to plan the future.
She was making her best guess.
So am I.
And sometimes the best thing I can do is look at the plan, take a breath, and decide what still makes sense from where I am now.
Not where I thought I would be.
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