I’m a planner.

Apparently, God thinks that is quite funny.

I’m late. I’m always late.

I’m wrong. I’m always wrong.

I’m never done. Never on the right path. And my life is never, ever going as planned.

And yet, I systematically stare at the impossibility of my plans (too much, too many, too late), and still find myself consistently surprised and disappointed by my seemingly planned defeat(s)…

…and then immediately make a plan on how to better plan my next plan.

I am in love with lists.

I fantasize about the checking off of a to-do…

…sometimes with such passion that I have been known to add a “done” to my “to-do”,  just to experience the hallelujah of then immediately crossing out its significance.

It is kind of sick. I admit it.

I am the result of too many sticker charts.

I confess my dependence on my fictional extrinsic addiction, fueled by the M & M model of my gold star generation.

And yet I plan on.

But why?

I pretend the perfect Pinterest party will be the memory that my children will one day paint my portrait in. I convince myself the Disneyland destination that drains our savings will save my munchkins from the memories of their screaming, savage of a mother. I plan their “moments”  with the fantasy of a living scrapbook of their happy childhood.

I’m a planner.

Apparently, God thinks that is quite funny.

My plans will never be their moments, their memories.

Their etchings will be earned through the traditions you never intended. Those that never seemed worthy of posting. Not important enough to even mention in an old fashioned conversation.

These moments were never planned. Never listed on any “To-Do”. Never deemed significant enough to even be darkened as “Done”.

They are the strangers hand prints in the sidewalk they test each time they pass, with dreams of their tiny digits finally stretching enough to fill the puddle. The ones they make you stop and wait for, EVERY time.

It is that hidden jam where you’ve allowed, even welcomed, the forbidden Sharpie, to graffiti the inches, that seem to have evolved into feet, in the magic of years that somehow feel like a mere moment.

They are Mickey Mouse pancakes fashioned more out of imagination than anything resembling Disney, or the bad bedtime stories authored by exhaustion.

They are right there, in that “secret place” (you know the one) where they’ve created mystery out of monotony and magic out of the mundane.

This is it!

These are their memories.

So, I’m late. I’m always late.

And I’m wrong. I’m always wrong.

And I’m never done. Never on the right path. And my life is never, ever going as planned.

So what?

Be late. Because maybe, just maybe, today is the day that their hands might match the stranger in the sidewalk.

Be wrong. Because finding the “Mickey” in the mess is more magical anyways.

Dare to clear your calendar…

…because if we are always planning their next big adventures, we’ll miss out on the ones they might actually remember.

At least…

…that is my plan.

If you can relate, please LIKE, or SHARE, or FOLLOW, or read some more.

Help me avoid the morning-after-writer’s-remorse that wells from the paranoia of my signature self-shaming, by giving me your virtual nod and smile, and I will promise to divulge deeper despairs in days to come.