Anyone that knows me knows that I live by my schedule. My calendar holds all of my work and personal commitments, and I even send meeting notices to my family for family commitments to have them on all of our calendars. Sometimes, I don’t even know where I am going next unless it’s in my calendar. With everything going on in our lives, it gives me great comfort to have a plan/schedule – and I count on it to make all of the many things we need to accomplish to happen.
However, this week, I was reminded why sometimes, being over-scheduled or being too tightly tied to the schedule can make me miss opportunities right in front of my face.
On Thursday, I stayed home with Diana since her aunt was unexpectedly down for the count with a nasty virus. Diana had art camp for half the day, so I planned to get as much work done as I could while she was at camp. Then, when she came home for the afternoon, I planned to take her to this incredible local park/splash pad so she could play while I worked for a couple more hours.
When we pulled up to the house to scurry inside and change into her bathing suit/play clothes, we noticed that our neighbors were outside with their dog. Diana loves our neighbor’s granddaughter and their dog, Max, so she asked if she could go play with them for a few minutes. I begrudgingly said yes, because my arms were full, and I wanted to get inside to unload and get moving to keep on schedule.
While I was inside gathering up the things we would need to go to the park, my neighbor texted to say that the girls had decided to play on their screened in porch. She had mentioned that her granddaughter was going to be leaving in about 30 minutes, so I decided to hop in the shower quickly and collect Diana to take her to the park when I got out.
Then, it struck me, as epiphanies often do, while I was washing my hair. Here I was scrambling so that I could go take Diana to play – AND SHE WAS ALREADY PLAYING. I was so focused on my schedule that I had completely missed the fact that Diana was doing the very thing I wanted her to do – it just looked a little differently than I thought it would. I was trying to hurry things along so that we could get on the schedule I made, and instead, Diana was having a great time already, giving me time to work quietly.
So, I relaxed, set up my laptop on the dining room table and kept an eye out of the front door. I hammered out a TON while she was on her impromptu play date next door – enough that when I did finally collect her that we had time to sit down and eat lunch together, slowly, out on our screened in porch. That was not on the schedule either, but totally lovely to get to do.
Then, we suited up and I took her to the park, and she played while I worked. It was hours after I had originally scheduled us to be there, but right on time.
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