I need to do this. It won’t even take that long. It’s just thinking and writing. I do thinking and writing all the time. In fact, I get paid for all of the thinking and writing I do. Then, when I’m not getting paid to think and write, I do it for fun. Big thinker and writer, me.
I pick up my phone, bypass the many missed call and unopened message notifications, tap on Youtube, and find my playlist labelled “You’re Supposed To Be Doing Something, Aren’t You?” A little scroll, and I’m able to pull up a video compilation I made last spring of clips of Archie being particularly productive. I follow it up with a similar video, made more recently.
Another twenty minutes pass.
Sarelia, youlikehomework.
And yet…
I watch one more Archie’s Doing Stuff compilation before setting my phone aside.
Properly motivated, I move to sit at my shiny new desk where Archie has set up my laptop amidst a plethora of office supplies and stationery. I push the laptop aside and grab one of the large notepads from a letter organizer in the desk’s corner. Next, I carefully select a sparkly orange gel pen with a kitty-shaped clicker from one of three teacups filled to the brim with pens, pencils, markers, and highlighters. I set both items in front of me, take a deep breath, and… remember that this task is Scary™.
My eyes stray to the window as I click, click, click the kitty pen.
Archie wants me to do this.
No, Archieneedsme to do this. Am I really going to let Archie down because of something as silly as beingscared?
I stop clicking as my stomach drops, then twists. Icannotlet Archie down.
Biting my cheek, I put the pen to the paper and write a whopping five words at the top of the page. “Goals,” I whisper. “I can make goals.” And I can, obviously.
Obviously.
I clear my throat.
What are goals, anyway, when you break it down?
The pen taps the desktop as I consider.
Goals are… wants. Desires. The future that looks bright, and the steps to making it happen.
I straighten. I can figure out what I desire. Easy peasy.
My blank list and I regard one another.
The clock ticks.
U. G. H.
Wrinkling my nose, I write my first goal. “Make goals,” I read. Perfect. “Number two… um…”
Now that I’ve written one completely legitimate goal for my marriage, my mind has transformed from a barren wasteland to a frenzy of options, each one sliding through so fast I can hardly grab them, and the ones Idoget ahold of are more inappropriate than not.
Or. Well. Wearemarried, aren’t we? And wedidspend our entire evening last night doing scandalous things, did we not?
The next not-so-innocent desire I capture gets put on the list. Then the next, and the next. Face hot, I keep going, hoping against all logic that the impropriety turns to something more substantial as I run out of desires to wrangle in my head.
Surprising me, this method works, and at number forty-two I record my first non-physical goal for my time with Archibald Pine.
42. Mutual care and respect
You know, that stuff my family doesn’t seem to have a very good lock on. I add more to the list: consideration, support, communication. I think of all the things I wish I had back at home, and I write them down.
53. Thermostat compromise
54. No decrease in quality time together if it is within our abilities
