a new view

My hubby and I spent yesterday in nature, in the bush and then with paper and pens writing lists about what we want to do in the next 2 years. We have blank canvases before us and endless possibility for stuff to do together and alone.

We have worked together for over 20 years and this often entailed making plans for our business with paper and pens BUT in the 30 years we have been together, this is the first time we have written a list of all our dreams of our life together.

In the past we have tended to deal with one-off dreams as they arise
a) let's live together
b) let's move to a different area
c) let's get married
d) let's buy a house
e) let's have a baby
f) let's start a business
g) let's sell our house and buy a bigger one
h) let's save up and go overseas together as a family

Along the way, we have shelved dreams that didn't suit us both right now, together. Time and again though we failed to discuss what makes us happy, what we are looking for in life, our individual dreams. Mostly, one of us would have an idea and we would discuss it to a compromise or one of us would win/lose/concede/yield.

Yes, it is surprising we are still together after 27 years of marriage- I guess we thought we understood what we both wanted.  Yesterday we did write lists of our dreams and we ended up with places where we agree and places where we diverge.  And lots more work to do.

Last night as I shared our story, a friend wanted detail about what we did, so I thought I would write out our process.

First we put headings on a page; travel, work, home, finance, creativity. Then we each wrote our dreams (everything accepted, no judgement, no discussion)
then we looked at the lists and found what was the same and what was different.

Amazingly we love our current home but feel we have different space needs now. So we took another sheet of paper and headed it up My Ideal House. We then wrote our own dreams in two columns. Space for creativity, room for visitors, close to the city with a country feel were added to the list.

Some of the things about a house also impact on lifestyle so on a third piece of paper, we wrote a new heading My Ideal Life. Again we had our own columns. My Ideals included part-time work, volunteering, creativity, travel, fitness, and being part of a community. The next step is to break these down into bite size realities so we can start to formulate a plan. 

Between talking and writing, we walked in the bush and took photos and let our imagination soar and our ideas take flight. Great day, good outcome, excellent process.