The best-laid plans of mice and women ...

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us." ~ E. M. Forster, British writer (1879-1970)

Is that right, Mr. Forster? Is your sensibility here due to personal experience?

My personal experience: Life is what has happened to me while I've been waiting for other things to happen to me. Like being a size 6. Like having a career that pays enough to shop at Ann Taylor Loft. Or a career that allows for travel and exciting locales.

How is it, exactly, that I am living this particular life? Is it by accident, or some
Great Plan or just a sequence of decisions ? that has led to my being a middle-aged, overweight, middle school teacher. I mean, I hadn't planned on being a teacher. I hadn't planned on having an empty nest at the age of 45. I hadn't planned on marrying a man seven years my senior who doesn't believe in spending money on vacations (and is prematurely bald, bless his heart). And I sure in heck hadn't planned on having a six-month pregnancy belly when I am certainly nowhere near being pregnant.

I really, truly thought my life would be far different than it is. If you'd asked me twenty-five years ago where I'd be in 2010, I never would have guessed at the helm of a middle school classroom, teaching eleven and twelve year olds the difference between simple and compound sentences.

I had PLANNED on an exciting world in broadcast journalism (I was going to be the next Jessica Savitch). I had PLANNED on marrying a thick-haired attorney/doctor; I had PLANNED on postponing motherhood until the age of 35. I had PLANNED to vacation in Vail with my well-dressed preppy offspring.

Of course none of this happened. None.

Not complaining. Really. That would be rude and horrible and disrespectful to the life I am leading. I'm just contemplating how it is that I got here. Mostly, though, I'm wanting to figure out where I'm going next ~ and if I really have any say at all as to what happens to me in the next twenty-five years.