best-laid plans

It seems as if I’m destined to be presented with the same lesson over and over again until it finally sinks in. Thing is, I keep thinking that it has sunk in, and then, time and time again, am reminded that I have not, in fact, learned the lesson at all.

The lesson has to do with making plans. And control. Every time I think I have a portion of my life planned out, or under control, Life comes along and shows me it has other plans. And every time I meet the destruction of my careful plans with feelings of injustice, as if nothing should change once I decide on a course. Even though it virtually always does.

The first time I remember talking about having learned this lesson (although I clearly hadn’t) was at my grad school interview. More than one person asked me what I saw myself doing in five years. Having had my life take some big changes prior to the interview, I gave what I thought was a wise but truthful answer. I said that five years ago, I had no idea I would even go back to finish my Bachelor’s degree, much less apply to a doctoral program. Moreover, five years prior I didn’t even know what school psychology was. So rather than say with any confidence what I’d be doing in five years, I was open to wherever life took me. Then I think I completely contradicted myself and said something else about what I wanted to do with my school psychology degree. Of course, the contradiction is what betrayed the idea that I had learned my lesson. It also showed my complete ignorance at how long school would take me, but that’s a whole other story.

So last week, my oncologist told me I should start thinking about scheduling my double mastectomy. I glibly told her that I had plenty of time, because I had planned to go to school during Fall Semester, and have the surgery during Winter Break. I had planned it, see? It fit perfectly into my little timeline that nicely worked my treatment around my school, so that nothing was disrupted. I had already extended my schooling for a year, and I wasn’t about to extend it any further. Well. My doctor’s eyes got wide, and I’m pretty sure I detected some panic in her already normally-anxious voice. She might have even twitched. She informed me that my plan wasn’t optimal care for an aggressive cancer such as mine. She said it was ultimately up to me, but letting that cancer sit, untreated, for an extra month, was risky. It was one of those reminders that I don’t go to see her as some sort of alternative summer routine, but rather because I actually have cancer. Oh yeah.

So, my plans changed. I won’t attend school this semester. This is a hard change for me. Another reminder that things are not in my control. But maybe the lesson is that, to an extent, control is an illusion. We can optimize our opportunities to the best of our abilities to have the life we want by making our plans, sure. But maybe the danger isn’t in making the plans so much as it is in the clinging to the plans. When we (or I, anyway) become so attached to the planned timelines we have created in our heads (how many times have I charted out when I would take which class, when I would write my dissertation, when I would apply for internship, when I would be DONE), we feel almost heartbroken, betrayed, angry, hurt, when those timelines have to change. In all reality, I do know that in five years, it will make no difference to me when I took this class vs. that, or in which semester I proposed my dissertation. I will, however, remember that when given a choice, I always prioritized optimal care over pushing through with a given plan I had become so attached to.

So, it looks like the school supplies I bought for this semester will have to wait. Maybe until next? I’m trying to be flexible with that. Until then, it looks like I have some extra time on my hands. Maybe to digest the impermanence of everything. And, oh yeah, surgery on November 11th. Unless that changes.