Carefree is probably not a word I would ever in my life have used to describe myself. Plans are kind of my thing.  I plan out my day on a post it. I write out my week on my shower wall. I plan out my months, my goals, my life.  Plans work for me because they makes me feel like I know where I’m going and that I have control over it.  These little directions I give myself keep me running, and when all else fails, I plan my way out of it.

Now, lately I’ve been a bit lagging with my dating scene so my natural move was to find a step by step way out of my slump.  The details don’t really matter, but what’s important is that I felt like I had a pretty nice set up to get me away from potential pitfalls with some unscrupulous prospects and to move on to greener pastures.  It included some pretty ingenious time tables, protocol for handling calls and texts, and a few hard rules.  When I had it all worked out in my head, I proudly announced it to my sister Julie.

Julie, however, was far from impressed.  She told me I was putting limits on myself and setting situations up for failure.  Let things happen, she said. “Just… let it ride…”  which was a reference she swiped from one of my dad’s favorite old 80’s movies where Richard Dreyfus gets massively lucky at the horse races by letting his ticket ride.  I never really thought about how much I rely on planning until I realized just how uncomfortable the idea of losing control made me.

Of course, years of strategizing didn’t leave me in an instant, and before long, I was back to my old, comfortable ways of mapping out where something was going to lead and what I was going to do in this instance or that.  Apparently that’s still where my focus was because when I was talking about a guy with another of my friends he cut me off, “What are you talking about a plan? You don’t need a plan. Just see what happens.” Hmm.. so you’re saying my plan needs to be to not have a plan? “If that’s the way you need to look at it. Yeah.”

So here we are, a week later on the Non-Plan Plan. Ridiculous as it sounds it’s helping me remember not to get trapped over-analyzing.  Someone wants me to go to a movie, and it’s no problem. Until something happens between us, all it is is a movie. No one is potential, and there are no hidden messages to uncover.   Though I still have to catch myself in a few instances, I’m having a really great time not thinking.

I usually end these little plan-of-action posts with a goal of the week or something like that, but seeing as we’re not looking forward for this one, let’s just relax a little and let it ride.