Monday, February 11, 2013

Life Is What Happens When You’re Busy Making Plans


Life happens when you’re busy making plans is something Big Handsome always says. It is so true at times. Before I got sick, I was a big-time planner. Practically everything I did had to be planned, still does to some extent, but I am slowly, painfully learning that life happens when you’re busy making plans.

When you’re diagnosed with a chronic illness and your life is turned upside down and basically what you used to do and be seem to be nonexistent; it makes it kinda hard to plan for anything. Sometimes the opposite happens and I tend to want to plan everything that is going to happen. This can be nearly impossible and can really wreak havoc on life in general.

I am basically and pretty much always have been a control freak. I like to know what is going to happen, when it will be happening, how long it will take to happen and when it will end. With chronic illness, those questions almost always go unanswered. This probably stems from my father who would always have every vacation planned down to our bathroom breaks (I’m not quite that bad). I’ve had to learn to “go with the flow” which is NOT easy for me in the least.

We have family members that are quite spontaneous. It drives me NUTS!! They make plans on the spur of the moment that include us and I am now finally comfortable to decline most invitations. My problem comes in the form of resentment when this happens. I guess I’ve always held to the idea of, “A lack of planning on your part doesn’t constitute and emergency on my part.” I realize this is a whole other story; I’ll probably save that for another blog post in the future.

Even still though, I try to control things in my life. I don’t think this is too crazy, because in the life of a person with chronic illness, there is so much that we cannot control, I feel the need to control the few things that I might just have control over.

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