When things don't go the way you planned.

From our first trip together. - San Juan Islands, 2009

In the past couple of years I've realized that I like plans.

I like to have an agenda, to know where I am going, what I'll be doing. I used to think I was a pretty flexible, easy-going person. And, I don't think I'm inflexible. If things change suddenly, I can and do roll with it.

But, as a general preference, I like plans.

Then sometimes I realize that my plans aren't the best. Not in that elusive, "God just knows so much more than you and just laughs and laughs at you because you think you're making plans and you're wrong." (I'm not sure I've ever really liked the idea of God making fun of me as some infantile creature who runs around making stupid mistakes and stupid plans - in fact, I don't think that jives with my belief that God created me with purpose and intelligence and in his image.)

Back to me making plans. The plan was for Dan to be out of the military in October. I would have left some weeks before that to the place that Dan would have accepted his next job and found an apartment and waited for him to join me.

It would have been a place near two or three (or five or ten) really great law schools that I could apply to once I had taken the LSAT.*

It would have been in California. It would have been closer to our family. I would've found an awesome rental with tons of space so I could get a huge dog (the dog was imperative).

It was going to be a really smooth transition, in my head. My plans were perfect.

When I found out that Dan's contract is longer than we had thought I was really upset. I tried to mask it. I didn't want to take it out on Dan because it wasn't his fault. AND it wasn't that much longer, I tried to tell myself.

I was overreacting. And hyperventilating.

I wouldn't be going back to California when I thought. I would be staying in North Carolina for longer than I thought.

So, now we are at the time when we thought the moving process would be starting. When I would've been packing up our apartment and figuring out logistics for our move back across the country.

And, can I tell you, it's a good thing that is not the case.

Finding a job for Dan has been difficult, to say the least. And I can't even imagine what state I would be in if we were moving with no prospects of hire.

It's a good thing my plans didn't work out.


*If you know where this place exists please let me know so Dan can apply there and I can be virtually guaranteed a spot in some Law School. ;)