I have a confession to make.

One most of you will relate to or understand.

For the majority of my life, I was a planner.

BIG time planner.

I would self-diagnose myself as an obsessive compulsive planner.

25 years ago, we didn’t have smart phones and apps with reminders and special notifications.

We had to write stuff down.

And I did.

I made to-do lists, agendas, and itineraries.

For trips to the zoo. During my stint as PTO President.

The planning kept me on track.

That’s for sure.

Even with all of that planning…

…something showed up that wasn’t supposed to happen.

It wasn’t part of the plan.

Even after I double checked the plan, the agenda, or the itinerary, I found myself in a flux of disbelief.

How could this “thing” just happen?

Like that?

What do you mean my kid is sick and I have to go pick him up from school?

Don’t you know that I am buried in work and have an important meeting this afternoon I just cannot miss?

Excuse me?

How can my car need $1,000 worth of work today? It was working just fine last week!

Now the dishwasher is leaking, the dryer sounds like it is killing something and I cannot find “my happy place.”

Welcome to life!

The land of the unexpected!

We know you will enjoy your frequent surprises and more-often-than-not unpleasantries that were not on your agenda for the day.

Here we are…in the land of opportunity to bring me something I never saw coming.

Our first reaction, behind Door #1, is to become the girl that runs away from everything.

Here you will find her bolting out the door before she even hears everything she’s “won” today.

She has “checked out” and isn’t even looking over her shoulder to see if anyone is following her.

Before long, she has “left the building.”

I was that girl.

If something didn’t go according to my plan, it was very difficult to adapt to someone’s plan.

I mean they didn’t even ask me about it beforehand.

They just showed up and said, “THIS is happening.”

Seriously?

Come on, man!

There’s a BIGGER plan in play every day

I like being in control.

It allows me to expect a certain outcome with anticipated results.

Sometimes, I was left with disappointment.

So, I spent a lot of time fighting this “bigger” plan and finally came to one conclusion…

…it doesn’t matter how much I fight.

I cannot change “the plan.”

But something had to change.

I tried bartering with the “plan” — making it promises “just this ONE time.”

But “the plan” seemed to want no part of my logical reasoning.

It didn’t seem to care about the things I wanted.

It was going to do what it wanted, when it wanted, no matter what.

 So I did what most of you are afraid to do…

I surrendered to the “bigger” plan.

Now, don’t get me wrong — I don’t just throw up my sails and let the winds take me wherever it wants.

However, I do allow myself to make room in whatever plan I have for “the surprises” life chooses to grant me.

Some of these unexpected experiences teach me a lesson while others point me in a direction I never would have taken, let alone seen.

With the guidance of a friend (she was also an unexpected blessing), I began to not see life as a planned event, but as an embraced journey.

In some ways, I let go…

I let go of the control.

Of the madness that came with the needing to be in control.

The stress that made me a rigid personality instead of someone who is more easy going.

I let go of everything being perfect and in its place at all times.

Sound familiar?

Now, I just ride

I am like the first mate of a ship…I steer when I need to, but most of the time, there is someone else guiding where I go next.

Not having the responsibility of the plan has allowed me to truly do the one thing my plans never took into consideration…

…I have fallen in love with life.

I allowed the “tide” of life to weave its way through me, coming and going as it should.

Throwing my hands up in the air to truly feel what it means to let go has been one of the hardest things I have ever done, yet not sure I can ever go back to needing that incessant control I once coveted.

Life will never go according to plan.

It doesn’t matter if it is your plan or my plan.

Somewhere along the way, it’s going to change.

Maybe some times, it changes for the absolute worse reasons while other times it changes for something quite amazing.

We plan so we for one reason only…to know what happens next.

That’s where life comes in and is certain to play plenty of tricks on us…

because none of us really know what happens next.

Not even the best planner ever.

You see…no where in my plans did I see myself here.

Yet there is no place I would rather be.

Michelle A. Homme 2017 ©