Guess who had a birthday last month? That’s right, it was this woman. 24. I have many mixed feelings about this, and I will talk about them in a future post because it’s an aspect of chronic illness that people don’t often acknowledge. But that is not the purpose of my Just 10 Things posts. Today, in honour of my birthday and my need to have some sort of direction amidst my slowed down life, I have decided to share 10 things I would like to have done before I turn 30. Six years is plenty of time, yeah?!

Visit Korea

This is going to come a shock to followers of my blog (ha! I’m funny), but I really love kdramas and kpop. As a result, I have a growing interest in the language, culture and country of Korea. I have already started learning the language. It’s beautiful, and complicated and brain fog makes everything harder, but it’s happening. Slowly. What I would really love to do though is visit, and spend some time exploring the country and immersing myself in the culture. I have already started working towards this goal, and have incredibly tentative plans to go sometime in 2022. Finances and health permitting.

Publish my first novel

Publishing my first collection of poetry last year was a dream come true. But the oldest, longest lived dream is to publish a novel. I have a couple of projects on the go. One is resting before I tackle rewrites, the other is in the early stage of first drafting. Who knows which I’ll be able to get out first. But six years ought to be enough time, right?

Go skydiving

I’ve been indoor skydiving, but that’s not really the same thing, is it? I wanna jump out of a plane!

Weekend away with my friends

Where did those movies and TV shows get the idea that it was easy to go away for a weekend with your adult friends?? Between marriages, kids and moving interstate, I haven’t been able to go away with my closest friends for a weekend of games, food and pampering since, well, schoolies. Also known as the end of high school. This is something I would love to do before I turn 30. Even if it ends up being, “Hey! I’m turning 30. Let’s celebrate by spending a couple of days together somewhere without husbands/kids/work.” Ha.

Design my own home

Let’s be honest, actually getting to build my own home is extremely unlikely. But in the event that I do end up in the position to be able to do that, my dream is a to build a simple home that is also ecologically sustainable. So, over the next few years, I want to be studying sustainable design and architecture, and creating some basic plans for a home that fits with my needs and values.

Transition wardrobe from fast fashion to thrifted or self-made

Yeah, I really want to be more ecologically conscious in my life, and phasing out fast fashion is something I can do with relative ease. So, I’m going to start. I’ve been learning to sew, I’ve been learning more about fashion, historical dress and my personal style has been evolving. All of this is working together to make now a good time to start introducing pieces I’ve made or thrifted (op-shopped, Aussie friends) into my wardrobe. As with the home thing, I really want the clothes I wear to reflect my needs, interests and values.

Take up gardening

This again fits with the desire to have a more ecologically conscious lifestyle. Also, over the summer, I was able to use vegetables grown in my mum’s garden in my cooking and let me tell you, it felt amazing to be able track every step of the process. Fresh, home grown food for the win. This is, in some ways, one of the more challenging goals on this list. Gardening requires a certain level of energy and engagement that I may not (definitely won’t) have consistently. CFS for the win.

But I want to try.

Try pole dancing

Pole dancing fascinates me, and I really want to try it at least once in my life. I can’t imagine myself being able to pole dance regularly, because, again, CFS, and it’s a really high energy sport, but you have to try the things that intrigue you at least once, right?

Take up beekeeping

This will be dependent on a lot of factors external to myself, but I have grown to love bees and would love to keep a hive. I doubt I’ll be able to keep honeybees as long as I share a living space with my allergic mother, but the bee native to Australia is stingless. Maybe she can be talked into it? We’ll see.

Climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge

I’m pretty sure this was on my “Before Year’s End” list, but it didn’t happen. So, here’s a little bit of insight into life with CFS: it’s all about goal revision. Yeah, people talk about goal setting, but really, with CFS, there is no way of controlling whether or not you’re going to be up to achieving something. So, expectation management and goal revision is the order of the day. I’ve decided that instead of giving myself a few months to do this, I should give myself a few years. Hopefully it’ll happen.