The Life Plan

So I'm in for a busy week or so as I try and round off the end of this semester for uni. I've got two major assessments due on Monday and am looking to knock them on the head. I'm prepared though, and provided I don't get too distracted on the weekend it should allow me to see them through.

I'm writing from my beloved Melbourne this time. It's my last day of leave here and part of a "mini" holiday I am privy to before I begin my new job. I've got just over four weeks left in the old one before I jump straight in. To say I'm looking forward to it is an understatement of gargantuan proportions.

While I've been staying here I've been assessing what the next steps are with the whole life thing. I've come to a few conclusions. I'm gunning for Thailand in late November this year. That's a given. I haven't been overseas yet, have some of my best friends over there and I'm running out of excuses and youth. This is a no-brainer. The next steps for me career-wise are set in stone as well. I'm an account manager. I moved to Sydney with the objective of becoming one and I've nailed it. I'm looking forward to consolidating on what I've achieved and throwing myself into an industry that I've worked hard to thrive in. It will be challenging but that's what I signed up for when I moved to Sydney. So I guess in a way that's a no-brainer too.

The third phase of this will be an extended jaunt overseas. After this stage of my career I want to work abroad. In Europe specifically. I'm going to do the party thing, the working thing, the exploring yourself thing. And it's going to be everything I imagined and more. Of this I am sure. I'll miss my friends, but a perennial side-effect of staying in Australia has meant that more often than not I have friends abroad as well that I miss seeing, and this time I'll be the one that will be missed. Plus there's bound to be friends abroad around the same time. Of this I am even more sure.

I don't know how long phase three of the plan will be. It's hard to mete out these kind of things. And it would be foolish to. I'm measuring out a piece of string and leaving it at that.

Then, placed tentatively at the back of my mind, is the decision about where to settle down afterwards. Provided I return, I see myself either buying a property in the inner-West of Sydney, or plonking myself into an apartment in Melbourne's Southbank. Both options are attractive to me, and it will really hinge on where my friends are around that time and who I keep in touch with.

I came to Melbourne not really knowing what to expect or whether I'd arrive at these conclusions, but coming back home has really proven a catalyst for articulating what I plan to do with my life. Seeing friends and family again has helped facilitate this, and it feels good to have an idea of where I want to go with my life after all these years.

There's a whole myriad of things that could go wrong. My love life, the ever-present bipolar, unforeseen tragedies... but that's what makes life exciting, and I'm not in a hurry to predict whether I'll be spouting the same self-revelatory epiphanies in a year's time.

But it will be interesting nonetheless.