Life doesn't always follow the path we planned (10/24/05)

I don’t know about you but life has not turned out the way I had planned. I was cleaning the other day and happened upon an old notebook. It contained an outline for my future. I don’t remember how young I was when I wrote it but it was a long, long time ago.

I had planned to have several children, learn to skydive (what was I thinking?!) and write a series of romance novels. Somewhere in the middle of all this I was to buy a farm, complete with horses, cows and ducks. There was a schedule for mastering karate and belly dancing, neither of which I have any interest in any more. Oh, and I was also going to learn to play the piano and get a college education.

Nowhere in this missive did it mention anything about leaky windows or calico cats that hate to be petted. The phrase “remodeling the house” never once appeared on the paper. I didn’t plan for bats in the bedroom at night or thyroid problems that landed me in the hospital twice and caused my weight to balloon.

I have only one child, not several, and she lives halfway across the country. It’s too late to have any more. I will just have to be content with grandchildren from now on. Besides, grandchildren are better. You can give them back when they start crying and spoil them rotten. I can’t wait to see Beth’s baby in January. For that matter, I can’t wait to see Beth next month at Thanksgiving.

I have revised my opinion that jumping out of a plane would be fun to thinking it would be insane. I hate romance novels and couldn’t even begin to write one. Every time I try to begin a manuscript the words, “It was a dark and stormy night” appear on the paper. Since the goal is not to be Snoopy penning the great American novel I have to trash that opening.

I haven’t taken the first karate lesson. Wait … my nephew takes karate. Does that count? I have way too much belly to even attempt belly dancing, not to mention that any unfortunate spectators would fall down laughing if I tried.

I have lived in a city of some sort since I got out of high school therefore I have yet to buy the first cow or duck. I haven’t been on a horse for more than 30 years so there is no point in shopping for one of those either. At this point I’m not sure I could even get my foot up high enough to climb in a saddle.

I did take piano lessons from a kindly woman for several years but as I have no musical ability whatsoever that was an exercise in futility. She never once suggested that I give up but I could see her cringe every time I hit a sour note.

The only thing I did manage to do was to get a college education. Of course, I was in my forties when that happened.

Even though things haven’t turned out as planned, life has been good. I have a nice family, a roof over my head and enough money in the bank to buy chocolate whenever I need to. I may not have a farm but I have plenty of house plants and gardens to satisfy my need to cultivate the soil without having to watch out for cow patties or road apples. Although every time I buy fertilizer I remember how much better the plants like natural stuff than the pasteurized man-made variety. Too bad. They’ll just have to take what I give them.

For the most part I am content to let my original plans gather dust. There is still time to acquire a few animals or a bunch of ducks and several acres for them to inhabit. More than likely that dream will have to wait for my next lifetime, if there is one. There is also time to start on my novel.

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