JW: Life Planning: the next 5 years

 These are preliminary thoughts for discussion in Julian.

Our journey and your new freedom have set my mind awhirl about what I want for myself.

Operating on the assumption that I can count on 5 years of health, energy, and motivation, what do I want to do with them? And what do I need to do to facilitate whatever choices I might make?

Because we have been gifted with a pretty high degree of compatibility, initiated a circle of trust, and survived our first travel experience, I have included you in this thinking. You, of course, may have completely different ideas and preferences, which is fine since this is preliminary thinking.

Overview of my wants and don't wants:

Want: Expansion and acceptance

• To learn and grow into a greater spirituality and connection with my own self and soul, friendship, nature and the Universe.
• To open up and deeply experience more of the world, art, beauty, and landscapes with the intention of gaining insight and wisdom.
• From all of that experience, create and express more of myself and find "the boon" that can be shared with the world. The idea of some sort of joint creation has also crossed my mind.
• To recognize and accept limitations and material restrictions without letting them dominate the landscape.
• To share the above with a kindred spirit or spirits. Specifically you ... I'm not sure how far the following idea would go if I had to do it by myself.

Don't Want: Stasis, narrowing of perspective, negativity

With the above in mind, I would like to plan two long trips a year, in the range of 2 weeks to a month each, in a variety of places that offer access to the above "wants."

To facilitate the above, I have ended my involvement with the peace magazine, and will continue to avoid commitments of time which might interfere with this plan.

Also, after Julian, I plan to learn to live without a full-time car in order to free up financial resources for travel.

Idea:

After Julian, we have retreats scheduled for the weeks of June 18 and September 24 although we have not planned them in any detail.

We've talked about your interest in longer trips to Ireland and/or England, so my thoughts about longer trips could include, or be separate from, those. If we were to do longer trips together, I believe we would need to experience one ... perhaps a week in June and two weeks in September as a way to confirm our ability to adjust to longer times together?

With that in mind, I just looked at Vancouver and it looks like an ideal time for weather and fewer crowds would be earlier in September or June. You've been there and probably have a better idea as to how much time would be appropriate there. My thinking is that it would be a good candidate for two weeks ... with maybe a rental car trip up to Hollyhock for a few days.

So, that's what I'm thinking ... looking forward to conversation about all of the above.