What's The Plan?
Back in Minnesota (in my old life, or previous chapter, or whatever I should call it, but not home, cause I am home here now, right?) my life had a rhythm to it. Monday through Friday was pretty expected. I knew the kids were going to school, I was going to work and then once in awhile things got a little “crazy” (picture me making air quotes here) and I would do a happy hour with friends or dinner with the fam at a local favorite.
Then there were the weekends. Maybe an event would pop up in my Facebook feed that other friends were attending and I would plan to go too. Maybe I would read about a new restaurant opening and book rezzies a month in advance.
And finally 2-3x a year we would take a trip. Most being home to see family. And one being a big adventure somewhere we had never been. I would book a flight and a hotel in less than an hour and once we were on the plane, we would start figuring out what to do - together. We both worked, so it was on both of us. If it sucked, we were both accountable. If it was great, than high five, we are studs.
Not much planning took place. It was “easy.” (Again with the air quotes.)
Fast forward to life in Tokyo. Every. Single. Day. I wake up thinking - what should I do today? What a privilege, right? This is what dreams are made of. #blessed #grateful
But let me tell you something…
Chase doesn’t have school Monday or Friday, so we need to do something oh so Tokyo. And then Anders gets out of school at 2:30 every day which means we still have a solid 5 hours before it is sleepy time. That is a LONG time. And he asks: What are we gonna do? And I have to plan it.
And then I need to make dates with friends, cause I know myself, and that is what makes me happiest, so I plan that.
And then it is the weekend and 3 humans look at me and ask: What’s the plan?
And then Steve and I have a standing date night on Saturday and in this town you need a reservation for everything, so I have to figure out where we are going. And there are 160,000 restaurants to choose from. No, not intimidating at all.
And then I need to figure out travel for the year. Everywhere we are going in Japan, and outside of Japan, and way outside of Japan.
And then I have people visiting and I should probably have some plans in place for them too.
And oh my gosh, there is so much planning.
And old me used to plan so much at work that I never planned much of my personal life. I lovingly referred to myself as a “go with the flow” kinda gal. Not now. Now I am putting SO MUCH PRESSURE on myself to rock at this because:
I don’t have a job, so I should be able to plan everything amazingly
My old job was all about planning, so I am good at this
And you know what it is doing to me? Paralyzing me. I have full on planners block. Can’t get myself to start.
There is a place here called the Tokyo American Club. We just finished a free 2-week trial there and I went almost every day. Why? Cause I didn’t have to plan it. I just went, cause I knew I wanted to take advantage of the 2-weeks and that was oh so nice.
So this evening, I sit here, writing this and not planning because my oh my. But now I will stop, refresh my browser, type in the words “Bali travel” and thank my lucky stars that I even have the opportunity to plan these sorts of adventures.
But also, does anyone know an accountability coach?
(The video above is from a weekend I rocked at planning, thanks to a big Instagram spend from Team Lab: Borderless, which more or less stalked me until I purchased tickets.)