“When things don’t go as you planned, don’t be let down. Make new plans. The sun doesn’t stop shining just because of dark clouds.”–unknown
Who loves a good plan? 🙋♀️
Are you a planner? I can be. I love a good plan like a kid loves her teddy bear. I can say the same about a solid routine. Various routines and/or plans give me structure, a scaffolding, to ensure I remember to do, find, and complete various short and long term tasks.
Without plans and routines, I am a total right-brainer who just goes with the flow. Free-styling is fine for many of my creative endeavors. Unfortunately, most of my creative endeavors bring little to no income to pay the bills. However, I love my creative side. It’s the joyful part of me. Thus, creating structure and routine to my day, allows me to pay the bills and have fun too.
I will fully admit that I have different plans/routines for different compartments of my day/week, and I work hard to fit those various plans together into the patchwork quilt that is my life. Routines for my profession are obviously far more important and detailed than routines for household chores. Nonetheless, no matter the plan’s level of so-called importance, if I create or find a plan that truly works, I prefer to stick to it, cling to it if I must . . . but . . .
Uncooperative Plans 😩
Unfortunately, life isn’t always so cooperative. It keeps flowing like a river reacting to the weather trends unphased by “Stephanie’s plan”. Sometimes the river of life flows steady ‘round bends and curves. Other times it is dried to a near trickle, and I wonder if the rains of inspiration will ever arrive. Then there are those storms that wildly overflow the banks of life’s river sending its waters over rocky embankments and into uncharted territory.
As I sat at my writing desk this morning, contemplating how to begin writing, I spent time staring out the window. Dawn’s light had broken upon clouds and fog. I could see peaks of brighter blue sky in between the gaps of the clouds overlaid with gauzy fog, and I realized that is often what happens to my plans.
planned laughter 😆
I often joke that I must make God laugh all the time by saying that I have a plan. Despite the fact that I know I need plans to organize myself and my hot-mess of a mind, I also know I cannot attach too tightly to those plans because God and life are going to do what they are going to do with me. And that is exactly what I am now experiencing.
One of my plans for 2024 is to run a spring half-marathon–the Virginia Beach Shamrock. It is one I ran last March weeks before having a fairly major surgery in April. Months later, in November, I ran the Marshall University Half-Marathon as a celebration of recovery from that surgery.
My training plan for the MUM was long and protracted in order to allow my body to heal and recover from surgery. After returning to work in May, I began gradually increasing my walking endurance throughout May and into June.
Then, in July and August, I gradually added bouts of jogging into my walking. Gradually, the running sections increased as the walking sections decreased, but there was always permission to walk at any time, and even for the entire work out time, if needed. Due to careful planning, I was able to build up to running the entire half-marathon in November.
Therefore, I thought why not continue training through winter and once more run the VB Shamrock Half-marathon. I had a plan. It was mapped out from Thanksgiving week until March 17, the day of the half-marathon. It was a beautiful and doable plan–not too hard–and fully manageable with my work schedule.
Who’s doing the Steering? 🛻
But as I said, I told God I had this plan, and He had a good ol’ belly laugh at it. I mean He must have enjoyed a real guffaw because very little of “my plan” has gone “as planned.” In fact, I have had to rework and adjust this plan so many times, I have finally, less than three weeks out, metaphorically thrown my hands in the air and surrendered because only Divine Providence knows what will happen on the day of the event.
Therefore, as I sat at my desk staring at the clouds, the rising mist of the fog, and the interspersed glimpses of blue sky, I reflected on my so-called plan. The plan included four days per week of running and/or walking, with one longer session per week, completed outside on the weekend, gradually increasing in distance.
Most of the early weeks into the plan, I was able to complete four days, running outside (translated, not on a treadmill) at least two of those runs. However, at some point after Christmas, I had to begin making adjustments. Runs were missed due to conflicts in schedules, and numerous runs were completed inside of a gym on a treadmill due to inclement weather. Plus, I battled several colds and even a random ear infection, which is something I haven’t had since I was a child, so more running time was missed.
Cloudy thinking 🤔
The thing about running, or any workout journey for that matter, is that it is a microcosm of life. Lessons learned on the running (walking, hiking, lifting etc) trail are often tangible life lessons. My plan was those fluffy white clouds in the sky that, in my mind’s eye, I could step comfortably from cloud A to cloud B and so on. The morning fog, however, was the realities of life. Sometimes my planned path was clear, but most often, there was some sort of, metaphorically speaking, weather event occurring preventing a smooth transition from one step to the next.
The cerulean sky, to continue the metaphor, was (and is) the Universe, the great I-AM, and that is to whom, in the end, I must surrender. As Carrie Underwood once sang, I need to let go of the steering wheel because clearly I am not the one in charge despite my illusions of control.
By taking a step back, away from the great “Stephanie-said-so-plan,” I can gain a new perspective. Firstly, I am grateful for overall good health. Sure, I have had a few minor illnesses this past winter, but nothing life threatening.
Furthermore, perhaps all those challenges and obstacles were Divine Providence’s way of giving my body the rest I wasn’t giving it. Perhaps, I have been pushing too hard for too long. Maybe some rest and recovery, like I gave myself after surgery, is what my body needed–especially as a more, ah-hem, older adult.
Surrender 🙏
Similarly to the way I witnessed the morning surrendering the events of the coming day to the Creator, I too must surrender the events of the future. What will be, will be. End of story. As my grandmother used to say as a preface, “Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise,” I will still have the opportunity to travel for a short trip to the shores of Virginia and live to tell another story. And, where’s the joy in life without stories to tell and lessons to share?
Steph Simply 