Tell me, what is it you plan to do, with your one wild and precious life?

I write this on the day of my 39th birthday. I carved out a few precious child-free hours to post up with my laptop at a favorite local place to write. I woke early this morning (3am to be exact, I am nursing my youngest) and in the dark morning hours wondered how I was looking down the last year of my 30s. While my 40th birthday seems the time to reflect on the decade past and dream about the decade forward, for some reason I feel like doing it this year. In a world that feels increasingly negative or scary, I don’t want to wait to dream of beautiful things. Perhaps this reflection will be something to think about all year long. Perhaps I will now have time to modify and think deeper on these goals. Perhaps when I reach my 40th birthday, I will have a whole year’s worth of clarity to launch with more purpose than ever before. We'll see. So here is a bit of a life reflection and some bucket list items I think I would like to go after in my 4th decade. 

On my 30th birthday, I was surrounded by a small group of friends and family and my husband. We celebrated on a boat sailing down the Danube, Budapest lite up in the background and a Roma band providing the soundtrack to the start of my 3rd decade. I could not have foreseen the way the next years would have unfolded. I like to think 30-year-old me would not have been disappointed.

My 20s was a decidedly vast decade, defined by travel to 10 countries, some trips lasting weeks or months at a time. I dove headfirst into becoming an anthropologist, very unsure of where i was headed but determined to enjoy the ride. I met amazing people all over the world and was changed in ways I could never expect.

My 30s on the other hand, took a drastic turn. At 31, my husband and I welcomed our first son. And last month, on the eve of my 39th birthday, we welcomed our 4th (30-year-old me would be most surprised by this). The years between have been filled with our parenting journey, as well as the hard work of taking my training as an anthropologist and finding out how it could support a growing family. If my 20s were vast, my 30s were small. We lived in small communities, from a town in the mountains of rural eastern Oregon, to another small town outside Buffalo, and then finally settling way up in New York’s rural North Country at the foothills of the Adirondacks. International travel has been minimal.  Most of my days have been spent in a 30-mile radius to home. You might think transitioning from an international traveler to a small-town resident of rural America would be disappointing, but it has not been. I’ve enjoyed building my family “in the country” so very much. I would not change a thing. Living globally and then living locally have been equally satisfying. 
  

With two very different decades mostly behind me, I can't help but wonder what the next one will look like. With all these experiences, what could my 40s hold?

I believe in living big and boldly, even if it means welcoming failures, facing change when I am not feeling brave, and walking down the paths less traveled. I believe in the sentiment behind Mary Oliver’s famous quote, which is why I used it as my title:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

So with my remaining time (before I rush home to my family and birthday celebrations they want to be a part of), I drafted some dreams for my next decade. I reserve the right to throw them all out if, at the end of this year, I change my mind. But perhaps sharing them and then thinking them through over the course of the year, will help me narrow in on what it is I want to do with MY wild and precious life. Maybe it will motivate you to do the same. No need to wait for a milestone birthday to inspire you. Dream big now.

How to Spend My 40s:

Explore new ways to “be an anthropologist”: I don’t know where my career is headed, but I know that I will forever consider myself an anthropologist. That needs to be present in what I do. Equally as important but a bit harder, I want to continue to use my expertise as an archaeologist. It might be through volunteer work (ie: last year I ran an archaeology dig for my oldest’s first grade class; today I chose an archaeology book as the mystery reader at son #2’s kindergarten class). It might be through work (ie: I just agreed to teach a heritage and public archaeology class next spring). However I do it, I don’t want to lose sight of these loves. If they are not the primary way I provide for my family, they should still be woven into my work and life. Not because I need to justify my years spent earning a Masters and Phd, but because they bring me joy.

Write a book: throughout my 20s and 30s I have written a lot for adults (a 400-page dissertation, many scientific and public facing articles) and even spent time developing manuscripts for kids. In my 40s, I want to pick a direction and finally write the book. Whatever book I am supposed to write, I would like to be holding it at the end of this next decade.

Build a dream childhood home for my family: I dream of an unforgettable childhood home for my kids. I am someone who is greatly influenced by the spirit of a place and find the concept of home very important to my happiness. One of the draws of living in the North Country is the possibility of purchasing a home with land, fully immersed in nature. We are an agricultural zone, so even raising animals or planting an apple orchard are all easy dreams to achieve. I dream of a childhood home for my four sons that will make it hard not to spend time outdoors and interact with nature. I want to make that home a reality as soon as possible. I hope when they are grown they will feel nostalgic for the freedom and fresh air of their childhood. Four kids who are barefoot, dirty, and free - that’s what I want my memories to contain in the coming years. 

Help those I love live THEIR best lives: I spend a lot of time reflecting and exploring how to live my best life. For years now I have used Powersheets to do this, along with seasonal overnight reflection retreats, daily habits of planning, and more. I've read a lot of books on ways to live fully, face fears, be ambitious, balance family and professional goals, and more. In the coming years, I wouldn't mind sharing what I have learned. I would love to provide community, to help others who might want to live more fully. My first priorities are my husband and kids, but this could also include my mom (on the eve of her retirement), my friends, my former, current, or future students, my colleagues, and more. A world where people are living their best lives is a world I want to be in; however I can help make that happen will be well worth the effort. 

Give my older kids their first international experiences: The years of my 40s correspond with formative years of my oldest sons. While I am 40-49, my oldest will be 9-18. My second son will be 7-16. These are the years I would like to introduce them to the world. I have the same goals for my younger two but acknowledge that might not happen before I turn 49 (that may end up on the 50s bucket list). 

Merge the global character of my 20s with the local, home-based nature of my 30s: I would love to see my 40s include more of the far-flung adventure I saw in my 20s, without sacrificing the joys of focusing on home and family which characterized my 30s. I would like to live globally and locally. And I would like to see the direction of impact go both ways. While I want to continue to be shaped by the  different international and local places I spend my days in, I would also like to shape them. I want to have more of an impact on this world, leaving it better than before. I don't yet know what that looks like, either on a global or local scale, but I would like it to be a defining feature of my next decade.

Learn what it means to be healthy and well in my 40s: This is simply a nod to the fact that when I enter my 40s, taking care of my mind and body might require change. What worked in the past might not work in my future. Being intentional in this space will impact my ability to achieve everything else I dream of!

Well, that's all for the moment. I look forward to reflecting on these ideas over the course of the year, and figuring out what it looks like to achieve them in the decade to come. If you have read this far, I hope you feel a little inspired to dream big too. Dreaming "big" looks very different for each of us. I encourage you to do the hard work to figure out what that means for you. My list is unlikely to resonate with everyone, nor should it. Build your list. It will be well-worth the effort. If you take nothing else from reading my words, take that with you. Go do something about your wild and precious life.

Cheers.
Katie