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| Please try not to be jealous of my amazing artistic abilities. |
It's funny how life works.
You make a plan, you dream about the plan, you maybe draw
little pictures of the plan, you plan out how to execute the plan... and then,
unless you are exceedingly charmed, life turns around and gives your plan the
big ol' hairy finger.
You are confused by Life's spectacle, but try to ignore it
because you need to remain focused. It's all up to you, you know. You're at the
controls. All you have to do is complete these tasks, meet these goals, learn
these things, and all will work out the way you want it to.
And if things don't? If things still aren't going your way,
what then?
You make a vision board. Duh.
All the Pinterest peeps are doing it! You slap a giant piece of cork on your wall
and add clippings and shit to it all the time. It's sort of like a serial
killer's shrine - except you're not murdering anyone (we hope), merely shrining
the shit out of your expectations.
Amused, Life will sometimes walk by your vision board. It
will say, "Why, hello there, little human. Are you planning again? Totes
adorbs!" And look like it wants to pat you on head. It closely examines the
cutouts from your favourite magazines, runs a hand over the inspirational
quotes from the people you admire most, all the while snickering under its
breath as you glare fiercely in its direction.
You get angry at Life. You tell it to move aside so you can
pin up another meaningful saying. You tell it to shut up; you're creating your
future right now. Or maybe you're envisioning it. Or perhaps even manifesting
it. You're using one of those words that you believe with all your heart will
allow you to live the life you want and deserve.
Life winks knowingly and walks off, bumping into the wall as
it leaves.
And then the vision board falls down and breaks your toe.
So you can't go skiing that weekend.
And your fiancé goes without you.
He comes home two days later and announces that he met
someone. Her name is Elsa. She's blonde and her parents are rich.
He moves out and you're devastated. The bills start piling
up. Bill collectors know you so well that they start sending you Christmas
cards.
You have to let your housecleaning service go and the vision
board starts to get dusty.
Life feels bad for you and brings you a roommate. She openly
picks her nose and becomes overly animated when watching Dr. Phil (which she
does every. single. day.)
Alone in your room and screaming into your pillow, you ask
yourself where the fuck Elsa and
Picker the Clown were hiding on your stupid, stupid vision board. Behind the
wedding dress collage? You start tearing the thing apart, looking for them.
You can't find them. But amidst all the pictures of sandy
beaches and perfect bodies and beautiful babies were a few important words you
had clipped out:
Gratitude
Acceptance
Resiliency
All words that mean strength of character to you. All things
you hope to be.
That's when it hits you:
You realize how grateful you are to have a roommate to pay
the bills, even if she screams at the television between 5 and 6 every evening.
You accept that your ex is a douchebag cheater man and hope
Elsa's parents make him sign a pre-nup. At least he showed his true colours
before you put a deposit on one of the dresses you had pinned up, right?
You finally see how amazingly resilient you've become. The
Big Awful Scary happened and you're still here. Look at you! That's
eat-half-a-cake-in-celebration material, if you ask me. (Don't ask me. I'm bad
for your waistline. Please see above picture.)
This is how I've come to look at life (including the half-a-cake
thing.) It's ok to make plans. Sometimes they materialize, and that's worth
celebrating. But the things that didn't go well - or at least didn't turn out
as we expected - are worth celebrating, too. We learn from losing, from having
to get up and brush ourselves off, from having to figure a way around monstrous
obstacles, from pushing past our darkest fears.
If you always live comfortably inside the box, it's hard to
know how to think outside of it.
My plan never accounted for a lot of things in my life. But,
as a wise friend said to me recently, those unexpected twists and trials seem
to have prepared me to be the mom and woman I have to be today.
When I was at my darkest after Gutsy came out - when the
visions of insurmountable obstacles and ugly intolerance swam before my eyes,
when I felt so low and sad and afraid for her- I was able to call on what Life
has taught me time and time again: These
feelings won't last forever. This will become your new normal. You will find
your strength and footing again, just like you always have.
That's how I've found the strength to call the right people,
make the right connections, advocate passionately, and remind my daughter every
day what a powerhouse she is and will continue to be. We are going to move mountains, I tell her. We have that strength inside of us. The world won't know what hit it.
Life didn't turn out the way I expected it. I'm glad.
Fuck the life plan.