When nothing goes to plan

Saturday morning. I woke up with a beautiful plan for the day. Start with an early morning coffee on my deck in the sun. Have breakfast with my daughters before they headed to their dad’s for the next week. Jump on a quick conference call with my office that wouldn’t last more than half an hour. (It’s Friday afternoon in Cusco; no one will want to have a long call, right?) Head out to Spoon Jam, the Australian wood spoon carving festival, meet up with some friends and spend a fabulous day wood carving with others. Live the slow life. Enjoy the camaraderie. Sleep in a tent tonight, listening to the sounds of the Aussie bush – the wombats, the kangaroos nearby and the sound of the Murimbidgee River flowing past my tent window.

A beautiful plan, don’t you think?

Except from literally the second I woke up the plan went out the window.

I woke up at 7am, not my usual 6. I woke to a text message from my office saying they were ringing me in two minutes. WTF???? I’m still asleep. Somehow I had done the time conversion wrong when I set up this meeting and thought we’d scheduled it for 8am, not 7am.

I seriously can NOT function in the morning without coffee. Double shot of espresso, straight up in the morning first thing. My kids know not to even try to talk to me before I’ve had coffee…I jumped out of bed. No time for coffee.

I grabbed my earphones and my phone and two seconds later the familiar Skype tone rang through. I flicked the kettle on to make a cup of tea and figured I’d suffer through half an hour before I could make real coffee.

Two and a half hours later…. I’m still on the call. Still in my pyjamas. My kids have left for the day, waving at me on their way out of the door. I am arguing with my new boss about procedures. Half of the call is conducted in Spanish. I still haven’t had coffee. This day is not going like I had planned.

And the rest of my day followed suit.

One of my friends out at Spoon Jam texted to tell me I hadn’t actually gotten into any of the workshops I’d signed up for. So all of a sudden there wasn’t a need to hurry to get ready, pack my camping gear and head out.

By 1.00pm I realised nothing in my day was going to go the way I planned, so I leaned into whatever came up. I gave up on getting to Spoon Jam at all. I decided to take advantage of a rare Saturday where I didn’t have to be anywhere else and I had the house to myself. So I did what I wanted to do. I created art. It was glorious.

I gave myself permission to do what unfolded throughout the day, rather than what I’d planned and I was better for it.

I’ve been guilty in the past of sticking with a plan long after all the wheels have fallen off the plan. I’ve been so sure that’s what I ‘should’ do or felt some sense of responsibility to finishing what I had planned. Why do I do that? It doesn’t make me feel any better or do anything positive for me or my life.

By letting go of my expectations for today I ended up having a better day in the end.

I created some beautiful art pieces that will be ready for sale at next weekend’s markets. I needed to get a few extra ready in preparation for the Christmas rush that everyone assures me will begin soon.

I had a nap in the afternoon sunshine. All of the early morning starts this week have taken their toll.

And best of all, my youngest daughter showed up around 5pm and announced she wanted to stay here tonight. We made pizza, watched a movie together and had a lovely evening just the two of us. We even started decorating for Halloween. It was totally unexpected that she would stay here tonight, but it made my day.

All in all, I’m glad my day didn’t turn out like I had planned. It’s been better. Which happens so often when I let go of my expectations of how life ‘should’ be and just let things unfold naturally.

Here’s hoping you have a beautiful weekend of letting things unfold naturally too.