How Did I Do on My 2022 Goals?! (4-6)

4. Festive self-date weekly, flirt all the time!

Heck yeah and heck yeah! Since I’m an Artist’s Way person, I’m supposed to be taking myself on dates once a week anyway, but I often will skate by on, like, going half a block down the street to smell the candles at the co-op annex. Those still count, but this year, I wanted the self-dates to be special.

At first, it was hard. I was still brokenhearted from a romance that ended in mid-November. But I did it. I drove to the OUTER suburbs to see a matinee of Nightmare Alley. It felt grim and lonely, not just because I’d chosen a superbleak movie!

But after a couple of months, I was driving along to wherever and I just thought “I love you.” In my head! TO MYSELF! I was dreamily stopping to take a sunset picture in the Movie Tavern parking lot on the way to see The Black Phone. Equally bleak movie, way-less-bleak heart!

Self-dates make the world feel more open, generous, and playful. One movie night even led to a second-chance love adventure! Two, actually, but those are stories for another blog.

I try to make fresh goals every year, but maybe this one needs to be every year, right underneath “Make stuff whenever I want.”

5. Cultivate my Mighty Writers relationships. This one backfired so badly that “Don’t go to the meet & greet” is one of my guidelines for 2023. Still a heartbreak I just can’t find words for.

6. Two hours Kahn Academy math weekly. Yep! I mastered 7^th grade math and I’m halfway through 8^th grade math! I got to change my car magnet tutoring ads from K-6 to K-7! Adding a math grade is a pretty big deal, actually! I’m pretty excited about it.