The Plan

Here’s the thing.

I don’t have a plan. I never have. I’ve never chosen a set path.

I’m talking capital-P Plan, the kind where you decide what you want and you set out to make it happen.

I’ve made plans before, of the little-p variety. I’ve planned vacations to the last detail, and planned evenings with friends. I’ve planned surprises, birthdays, road trips, schedules, workdays, naps, moves, and even revenge (though more revenge of the prank variety, not the screw-with-someone’s-life variety). I enjoy planning things almost more than I enjoy doing things. It’s so delicious, imaging the possibilities and reviewing them, making choices and changing your mind, embracing what matters and rejecting what doesn’t, taking advice and going with your gut, building anticipation and looking forward.

You’d think, being so delighted in general with plans, that I would go all in on making a plan for my life. But I haven’t. In fact, I actively avoid it.

Like everyone else coming out of high school, I thought I had an idea of where my life would go. It still wasn’t really a plan. I went along with what everyone else did, because that’s what you do, and I had experiences, because that’s what happens when you do things. But it wasn’t an identified course, and there was never a goal. And like everyone else a few years out of high school, I realized I was somewhere unexpected.

The reality though is that anywhere I landed would have been unexpected. I never knew what I wanted. To plan for a goal, you have to have a goal. And to have a goal, you have to know what you want. There never could have been a Plan, because I never knew of something I wanted more than I wanted anything else.

And you know, not knowing what I wanted turned out to be a pretty piss-poor way of moving forward for a lost 18-year old. Without something to guide me, I had nothing to propel me. I took some twisty turns on some really weird paths, and I made lots of mistakes.

Twenty-some years later, however, not having a Plan has become its own kind of plan. It’s something I embrace. Christine and I have a philosophy: Let the universe do its thing. The Universe has a knack for putting me where I need to be, at the times I need to be there. I won’t get into the details of that here, but it’s given me some things for which I never could have Planned.

Two weeks ago I turned 40. A series of unexpected events made me decide, for the first time ever, to formulate a Plan. I didn’t commit it to paper or discuss it with anyone, and as I’m quite new to Planning it didn’t have a solid shape in my head, but I envisioned a road map of fuzzy ‘if-then’ scenarios and I allowed myself to Plan for what these events might mean.

It was shot to hell within a week. I mean shot. to. hell, blown out of the water, bombed mercilessly, strategy running scared and the Plan running amok. I was angry with myself for Planning, angry with the Universe for dangling this in front of me, and angry at Plans.

I’m not angry anymore. I don’t usually live in an angry place and once the smoke cleared I was able to evaluate, with an appreciable measure of calm, where things had gone off the rails and why. I came to a pretty obvious conclusion; no more Plans. I posted something months ago about giving things a good effort before you quit, while also knowing when to walk away. This situation reinforced that for me. I can understand how anyone reading this might scoff, and want to remind me that trying something once does not qualify as a ‘good effort.’ But the lesson here – because there’s always a lesson (and if there isn’t then you’re doing it wrong) – is that when you truly know yourself, sometimes once is all it takes.

For me, not Planning works. But it’s different now. I’m not a lost 18-year old girl, too uncertain to identify a goal. I’m a woman who’s learned to recognize the glory in letting the Universe do its thing, and enjoy the freedom to explore all the open doors, rather than limiting myself to just one. And I know what I want now. I want to love. I want to travel. I want to help, matter, create, learn, teach, and appreciate.

None of those things require a Plan.

Several months ago I decided to help a young woman I didn’t really know. That’s a story for a different day, but I ended up giving her two pieces of advice. The first was that beauty starts on the inside. Start inside, work your way out, and the rest will come. This young woman whom I’d met maybe five times sent me a beautiful text on Thanksgiving Day, telling me that the thing she was thankful for that day was my lesson that true beauty starts on the inside. It touched me, made me smooshy and sentimental and so grateful that I’d been in a position to give someone something valuable.

The second piece of advice I gave her was the one that applies here. It is never too late to change your path. We all make choices which lead us in different directions, and sometimes it’s hard not to feel as though those choices have boxed us in. But don’t ever, ever, let anyone tell you that you can’t change paths. It won’t always be easy. It will often seem impossible. You may not even know how. But if something isn’t working, if something isn’t right, if you don’t like the path you’re on… change it. Change it. Even if that means throwing away The Plan without having a new one lined up. Let the Universe do its thing.

I don’t have a Plan. I never have.

But I know what I want, and I have the freedom to take any path which gets me there.