More than a list

I've been thinking a lot about goals lately, as I review my old 101 list and try to create my new 101 list (I'm at 98). About how setting goals is a good way to really think about where you are and where you want to be and what you want to do along the way. About how accomplishing your goals is fulfilling and provides a sense of moving forward. About how some goals are easily quantifiable and have an obvious end and how other goals are just kind of ethereal and hard to pin down as totally done because they never are, not really.

I've been thinking about how great it is that I accomplished 73 things that I set out to do almost 3 years ago now. And how while that is fantastic and amazing ... well what about those 28 that I didn't finish? Why didn't I finish them? Did I fail by not finishing them? And there is no real definitive answer. To any of the questions. I guess who I am now is different and the same as who I was 3 years ago. I guess I have different goals and different dreams and at the same time I have some of the same goals and dreams and it is very confusing at times. To figure out who I was and who I am and who I want to be. Who I want to be to myself and who I want to be to others. I have tendrils of thoughts that almost come close to being answers but they are difficult to grasp and almost always when I am half asleep.

I've been thinking about all of the really cool stuff I did in 3 years, all the not so cool stuff, all the happy and sad and extraordinarily painful moments, all the things I would never have thought to put on my 101 list but that happened anyways and have helped to shape the way my life is heading today. Not only did I go to Greece, but I flew overseas and saw most of Athens by myself and then spent the rest of my 10 days having a very fabulous time with my parents and meeting a lot of people from Holland. I went up two Acropolises (Acropoli?) and one of them involved a donkey. I went to game 6 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. I got a new job (on the list) and it involved moving (not on the list) all by myself to a city where I really knew no one and without my BFF to hold my hand. I saw one of my best friends get married - was her maid of honor, hand made invitations, learned enough about powerpoint to make a slideshow, wrote and said a speech, got seranaded, and had actual conversations with boys from highschool who used to terrify me. I hit Las Vegas twice, kissed a real live baseball player, took a road trip to Palm Springs, went to LA and saw Wicked (!!) at the Pantages Theatre. I met Simone, her fabulous family, and got to be part of her entire pregnancy. I have a better relationship with my mom than ever before. I did readings at my grandmothers funeral. I bought a new car.

I guess what I am trying to tell myself is that while it is well and good to have a list of things I would like to do, it is also more than acceptable to not do all of those things, to have my priorities shift or change all together and to have experiences that I never would have had the foresight to plan out on paper.