Have you made a list of your priorities in life?
I’ve gone through my life with priorities, I’ve just never written them down.
In my 20’s my priority was to own an English cottage or small house in the countryside but at the same time close to a creek where I could sail my boat. I just assumed I would marry my male ‘priority’ of the time and things would fall into place – just as it had for my parents. My boat could be as small as it is now (a landlocked 8 ft dinghy) but it had to be a sailing boat. My male ‘priority’ had the vintage 40 ft boat so that was a given.
I assumed that I would finish college, get my teaching certificate and then the priority in life would be a teaching job close to where I assumed my priorities would take me.
Of course, just because you have priorities doesn’t mean they come to fruition.
Once I married a different male ‘priority’ my priorities changed because marrying him involved emigrating to the US. During our first year preparing all the materials to publish the first US edition of a much-revered British nautical almanac was our joint priority. Having done that we had to come up with new priorities when the British company decided we were excess baggage!
Teaching couldn’t become a priority once I was told that I wasn’t even eligible to teach in Florida! What sort of country had I moved to? So just finding work was a priority. Then getting to work without a car was a priority. What bus route was I on and where would it take me? Was there even any work I could do along the route?
During that second year the emotional drain of being away from my family became too great. My need for my family in England became my priority. I left my job of 18 months to go back to England not knowing if I would return.
One of my chief priorities then was not to be a burden on my parents. Thus I forced myself to return to the US and work out the complications of married life in a very foreign, inhospitable country with an angry husband who was nothing like the person I married!
Somehow we worked things out. Within a year we moved to a flat in more pleasant surroundings, albeit just as foreign and inhospitable.
Being pregnant for the first time was an extremely happy time for me. Our first son was born and there was no doubt that my priority was to care for him, albeit forcing me into an extremely isolated life at home. But without family there was no way I was leaving him with strangers to go out to work just for the social contacts.
My son was a priority but isolation, I now understand, takes a considerable toll on a mother and her child. Eventually I found swimming lessons and mother and baby groups to share with my son. We seldom went out except with him – we were a family now; that was our joint priority. We were so lucky to find one person to be a beloved occasional evening babysitter and for her I am truly thankful.
With the arrival of son #2 priorities remained the same – family life as best we could manage it. We spent every Saturday morning together learning about our Florida surroundings with a group of other like-minded souls – we were the only ones hiking with children.
Then there came the thrill and stress of owning our first home – living in a fairly wooded area offered lovely daily walks and bike rides and a shady garden for the boys to play in.
Isolation was still an issue but one by one we befriended our neighbours and that’s where we live to this day. I suppose choosing to home educate also isolated us, especially since the majority of those making that choice in Florida were fundamentalist Christians — we are not.
Those who’ve lived in this neighbourhood for a while for the most part don’t want to move on to a bigger house. Their priorities are the atmosphere of the area they live in not simply how many bedrooms or whether the kitchen is big enough or modern enough. People who have such priorities move on within a handful of years and do not fit the profile of the rest of us.
Our priorities seem to be to live in a multigenerational mix. Any one of us could knock on each other’s door and give assistance as we have all done at times in the past 26 years – through hurricanes, fallen trees and many things in between. We have been each other’s priorities when needed.
My priorities from my 20’s have come to fruition – just in a different part of the world! I do live in a small house and I love my cottage style garden, albeit with a Florida beat. I am close to a river and when my husband and I feel fit enough we can launch my boat in Salt Creek just down the road!
My two biggest priorities, my sons, have been my main priority in every regard for nearly 30 years. I’m happy with that. They are wonderful human beings, totally self-educated and they have a multitude of gifts and talents between them.
Perhaps my priorities have made many dreams come true. Now it’s time for me to develop new priorities in life without casting off the old – just turning a bend in the river of life.
Sailing, a husband, children, a home – what can be next on my priority list?