The Best Laid Plans...

...of mice and men...or woman, as is the case today.

My "Fall Break" didn't turn out at all how I envisioned. I couldn't get my travel plans tacked down to something I could handle, mentally and emotionally, and that frustrated me to no end. I've just never been one who could make plans that are simply "tentative."

I like to KNOW what I'm doing, WHEN and HOW that affects the rest of my plans and the idea of things just dangling in the air with a foreboding sense of uncertainty fills me with anxiety and trepidation. A touch of the fear of my plans falling to pieces probably plays a role. That and the idea of having no control over your situation at all, but instead feeling like a marionette at the end of someone's strings. So many times in the past, my plans have hinged on other people's schedules or what was convenient for them.

One of the worst feelings in the world is that you play second fiddle to another person's plans or that you are a burden upon family and friends because you need them for transportation. I have a growing dislike for these feelings of "dependency" upon others and it's eating me alive. Playing it by ear inadvertently caused strife and discord between myself and my closest loved ones this trip. Mind you, I did make it up to visit, and most of my visit with my family went well, but there were still undercurrents of irritation and unfinished business that left me feeling icky by the time I returned home.

But I digress...

This morning, I was thinking about the opposite side of my personality.
I find it truly ironic that I'm a Pantser—that I write by the seat of my pants....

I'm not sure HOW that worked out, but in the case of travel or important plans, I need a serious game plan.

When writing—not so much.

I mean, a general idea, an inkling of a plot, the hero and heroine's names and careers, and a sense of their backgrounds and what I think is going to happen and I'm good to roll. I don't HAVE to know what's going to happen, when I'm going to leave my starting point, or what time I might arrive at my destination....I just go with it.

It reminds me of this quote-

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
~E.L. Doctorow~

I would love to be able to apply that same carefree mantra to other parts of my life, the travel and planning part in particular.

I could do with a little more spontaneity and a lot less fear that everything will spin out of control without a strict plan to abide by. I don't know when it happened, but there are times when the very idea of putting myself, my plans, my trust in other people's hands leaves me with feelings of inadequacy, that make me feel like the unforeseen is always in my blind spot and the internal chaos wreaks havoc on my inner control freak.

Having a place for things and things in their place is not a hard and fast rule for me. My house is proof enough that I can live with disorder, though I'm slowly working on minimizing that and I know Life is messy and sometimes things don't go as you'd planned.

So how did I come to this? My mom told me she thinks I'm a touch OCD suddenly and maybe I am.

And maybe she was just trying to be nice. ;) LOL