On Planning

           

            I am a planner.  Always have been, always will be.  I have an agenda.  I like to decorate it.  I make to-do lists.  I like checking them off.  Anyone who knows me knows this is one of my defining characteristics.  It drives some people crazy, and more often than not, those people drive me crazy.  Occasionally, I like to be spontaneous, but those are the times everyone else wants to have a plan.  I have just found that life keeps people so busy that if I want to see them I have to make them set a time and place, otherwise I get lost in the shuffle.  C’est la vie. 

            Lately, however, I’ve realized there are some things you just can’t plan for.  You can’t plan for other people.  You can’t plan for feelings.  You can’t plan for changes of heart.  You can’t plan for heartbreak.  You can’t plan for love (oh, you can hope for it, sure, but you can’t plan for it).  You can’t plan for uphill climbs or storms or long periods of the brightest sunshine.  You just can’t plan most of life. 

            And, honestly, maybe that’s why I feel the need to plan out Friday night or the last weekend in May.  Maybe that’s why I like to set times or menus or carpool arrangements.  Because, simply, there is so little in life that I can control. 

            I’ve completely given up on planning out the big stuff, like where I will be in a year or my summer backpacking through Europe or how many kids I might one day like to have.  I find that those plans are futile.  If you had asked me two years ago what I would be doing today, I can pretty much guarantee you my current life trajectory would have been nowhere on the five-year plan. 

            I always find it really ironic when people ask me where I see myself in five or ten years.  I have this new response I like to give when people want me to demonstrate my skills in the art of divination.  I like to say, “I don’t know…God hasn’t told me yet.” 

            And so, yes, maybe I plan out my weeks, and every now and then I might try to plan out a weekend three weeks from now, and, alright, I’m not going to stop pinning things to my “One day…” board on Pinterest, but that’s just me trying to keep my head on straight.  Because in this life, we have so little control; there is no way of predicting what twists and turns lie ahead, but I can sure as heck plan on having hamburgers for dinner and, so, that’s exactly what I do.