Creating a life...

There are no directions for starting over. Just when I think I’ve got it figured out, I realize how much I don’t have anything figured out.

The professional life recreating was easy. I knew what I wanted, I knew what path to take, I knew how to get there. I’m thrilled with where things are going on that side of my life. In fact, it looks like I have my first PAID directing gig coming up very soon. That part of my life couldn’t be better.

It’s the personal side that we’re not given directions for, particularly starting over at 45. Society is created based on a very old system – when you reach a certain age, you look for someone to pair up with then you spend the rest of your life making plans with that person. Plans for an engagement, then a wedding, then children, then college, then their engagement, then their weddings, then your retirement and then your death. Marriages are just figuring out plans forever.

When I got divorced at 25, it was easier. I was more open to meeting someone else, figuring I’d find someone to make plans with again. And I did. And we did. We had plans. I got over losing the plans I had made with my first husband because I found someone else to make plans with.

Then at 43, I lost that planning buddy because his plans and my plans no longer fit together. And I had plans. Boy, did I have plans.

But I didn’t realize until I was on my own that my plans were only on the professional side. I thought that was all I needed. After all, Susan, the director, was who I was. I was (and am) a director. But I forgot something. I was also Susan, the woman, who needed more than just professional plans.

I think I fell in love with the OOMA mainly because he was the person I was making plans with. For his birthday trip almost immediately after being on my own (although it was supposed to be a big bunch of making plans for that), planning for professional things he was doing with me, planning to see bands and plays and friends and parties. Plans for things he wanted to do and professional things he wanted to create. It felt like what I was supposed to do – find someone, make plans with them. I think we both got caught up in having someone to make plans with and that felt great and real and like what we were supposed to do. Maybe we both fell in love with that – the having someone to make plans with – as opposed to the person we were making the plans with. Maybe he realized it sooner than I did. Maybe I’m just realizing it now. That’s why I miss him being around so much – I miss planning with him.

Because without the OOMA, I have to make plans only for myself. And I don’t know how to do that. We’re not taught to do that. Neither men nor women are taught to make plans for ourselves after about 30 years of age because by then, we’re supposed to be in our permanent planning partnerships and never need to worry about planning for ourselves again.

But in an age when more than 50% of marriages end in divorce, self-planning is becoming a necessity. But no one is showing us how to do that. No one says, wow, that’s cool that you’re making plans to go to Mexico this year by yourself, for yourself, with some friends. It’s, “oh, you’re going to Mexico alone? Oh, you’re going with friends. That’s… nice. So have you been dating? Oh. Why not?”

I don’t know how to plan the rest of my life. I keep thinking I have to find someone to plan things with, otherwise how do I know if I’m making the right plans? I mean, god forbid I should make plans for myself, then find someone to plan with, and discover that he already has plans for himself. How do we make our plans fit together? And how do I plan for just me? In both my marriages, I thought I had to put everything for me aside so that I could be free to plan for them. After all, despite being a very liberated woman raised by a liberated mother, I still thought my job was to be standing behind my man, making his plans, making sure his plans happened, making our plans and then, somewhere after all of that, my plans came.

I don’t know how to make my plans the most important thing in my life. I still find myself wanting to make my plans around what the OOMA is doing because he’s the closest thing I have to someone to make plans with. And that’s just dumb. Because he’s making plans without me. He seems to be able to do that. After all, he’s been doing it a lot longer than I have.

I just don’t know what I want to plan. I mean, I’ve never really thought about just me, only me. Two years after I left my husband, I’m just figuring out that I’m at sea with what I want my life to be. I have a vague notion, mostly tied into my professional life. But I can’t see what plans I want in my personal life. They always seem to come back to – I want someone to make plans with.

I know I want to travel. But travel by myself? Is that what I want? No. I want to share Mexico with someone who will stand on the top of the Pyramid of the Sun with me, his arm around me, smiling down at me and saying, I’m glad we did this, happy 45 years. Someone to make plans with for the next 45 years. I want a home on the beach with wide, open, tall windows so I can curl up in a chair and stare out at the ocean, listen to its breath, take in its glory and peace. But I hear his voice in the other room, singing in that beautiful tone he has, thinking about what we’re doing that night. Again, making plans with someone. I know I want to be happy. That sounds simple. But there’s always the codicil that there has to be someone there to make me happy, to be happy with.

Two years later and I still can’t see myself for just me yet. I thought I could. I thought I did. But I realize more and more that I can’t and I haven’t. I have to learn to plan for just me. Then maybe I can open my life to someone else’s Dayrunner.

I wonder if Franklin Covey makes a planner for this?