I love planning my future. I plan everything to the last detail years in advance. I plan trips, parties, family vacations, weekly menus and my days. I love to have an agenda and know what my future is going to look like. For example we were going to renew our vows for our 20th wedding anniversary; I had a detailed time agenda, the budget, the guest list, venue and the menu all planned and it wasn't going to be until 2016.
When my husband died I felt cheated out of every single thing I had planned for us. There wasn't going to be a 50th birthday party. There wasn't going to be a 20th wedding anniversary celebration and renewal of our vows. We weren't going to be taking my daughter and grandson to Disneyland in a few months. We weren't going to go camping in a week for my birthday. Every single plan I had made for our future disappeared.
I realized the moment Robin died that my future I had created and thought was so real was completely false. There was nothing concrete about my future whatsoever. When I thought of my future Robin was a part of every detail. Even if he wasn't coming with me I had to be home at a certain time so that I could meet him at home. He was my life and he was my future and when he died I felt like I had no future.
But at the same time I realized that my future was completely false and that I could pretend any future that I wanted. It didn't have to come true, the planning it just had to make me happy in the moment. So I have begun to do that. Some things I know will come true and some things might not and there are a few that probably won't come true at all.
I planned to do the Tough Mudder with my family and friends and I worked hard and trained and guess what I did it. I planned to go to a cruise on Cayamo and as it approached it doesn't look like that future will come true. I joined the swim club and I am going to swim practices and I go to my first swim meet at the end of the year. I plan to do more spinning and weaving and a friend traded me her old loom for some of my labour and soon I will put something on the loom.
My friend and I are planning on doing the El Camino this summer and this I am really looking forward to as it feels like a very healing journey that I am very ready to take. I am researching and planning what to take in my pack, starting to do long walk training and starting to save money for our adventure. It feels good to plan and create my life, whether it comes true or not my future is turning out to be completely different then I had imagined and don't include Robin but still full of the same kind of things. Those things include: ups and downs, joys and sorrows, laughter and tears, adventures, learning, good conversation, interesting journeys but most of all love.
