Frustration, disappointment, anxiety — maybe something stronger. I’m not here as the fairy godmother of judgment, ready to grade how well you handle a wrench in your well-laid plans. I’m here to turn the kaleidoscope dial just a hair and see if there’s a lesson hiding in the pattern.
As part of my focus on intentional living after 50, I actually anticipated becoming more measured. More go-with-the-flow. It seemed like a reasonable move in the “I’m older and wiser” camp, and logical too, since there are fewer places I need to be at a specific time these days. Less time pressure, I figured, would leave more room for grace.
It hasn’t quite worked out that way. Maybe it’s a more complicated schedule. Maybe it’s just bad luck. My best-laid plans have been falling apart on a fairly regular basis lately, and this week gave me a textbook case.
We had just competed in New Jersey. I did the legwork: researched, made the calls, and arranged for Sasha and me to meet up the next day at the studio where I used to rehearse. He also needed to practice with the professional student he was competing with the following day, a U.S. champion, serious business. I’d offered to take them both to dinner, since New York City is practically my hometown, give or take a state. We made the plan tentatively, mid-competition, and I never wrote it down.
The next morning started with an SOS text from my daughter. The twenty-month-old needed help. New baby in the house, the rhythm still settling in. When I’m on duty for my grandchildren, everything else goes to the back burner without a second thought. I cancelled the appointment that would have brought me into the city ahead of the dance lesson, looked at my newly clean calendar, and settled in to babysit.
At five o’clock, my dance pro called asking where I was.
A messed-up plan, and this one entirely my own doing. I beat myself up over it, of course I did. It was only ever tentative, but I know better than to leave a plan that matters unwritten. So I did what I’ve been practicing for the last year or so instead of spiraling: Ok, God, what do you have planned for me?
A 5:30 barre class was open, and I hadn’t gotten any body work in yet, so I took it. There was a student celebrating the end of her last chemo treatment, finished only hours before and I was able to be part of that joyful moment. And a friend of an old colleague, who’d come in late and seemed to be carrying something showed up. Sure enough, at the end of class, she reminded me of a conversation we’d had the last time I saw her, about her mother’s progressive Alzheimer’s, and how I’d mentioned an article I’d written for this Substack on saying goodbye to a parent. She’d read it. It helped, even though her experience was its own, different thing. She wanted to tell me how her mother was doing, how she herself was doing. So I stayed.
That’s where I was supposed to be.
I still feel bad about messing up the dance folks evening, unintentionally, but messed up all the same. And I was glad, in that same breath, to have been available for the little bit that God offered me to help someone else.
So the next time your plans change, before you pitch a fit or the tears start, try turning the dial of your kaleidoscope and look for what gift might be waiting underneath the mess. If you choose to accept it. Don’t skip that part. That’s the first order of business.