Hearing stories where someone flies by the seat of her pants made me extremely uncomfortable. “Spontaneous” and “playing it by ear” were not something you would hear coming out of my mouth. Ever. I was a meticulous, play-by-play planner. My premeditating tendencies started early in life. As a toddler, I had prompt tea times with my stuffed animals and even my outfits were on a schedule. Every Sunday night, I would pick out the clothes I would wear for the entire week. I would have back-ups for spillage issues, because even back then I understood that my ability to plan a purple drenched ensemble was stronger than my ice cream to mouth coordination.
By age fifteen, my life outline was written: I would graduate college by age twenty-two; meet the man of my dreams and be engaged by twenty-five; married at twenty-six; have two children before age thirty; and by thirty-three be ready to start writing novels full time (because little Leo and Bella will be in school by then, of course).
The outline was foolproof in my mind and it started falling into place. After college, I met Shane. He was a few years older, successful and wanted to show me the world. Literally. Six months before my twenty-fifth birthday, he asked me if I wanted to island hop with him in Asia. I told him I would plan everything, down to the last detail. I thrived on planning and this would be the perfect opportunity to show off my skills. So language barriers and currency conversions aside, it took me the full six months to plan a month-long, tropical vacation, filled with multiple flights, airport transfers, a motorcycle, bungalows, hotel rooms, kite surfing lessons, scuba diving, massages and five star dining reservations. And we planned to go over my birthday. I wanted everything to be perfect, just in case he took a knee while we were there ...
Right when we pulled up to Chicago O’Hare to start our adventure, I got a call on my cell phone from my brother. “Have you seen the news?” he demanded. I told him I had not. “Well, you better make other plans. There’s been some sort of hurricane or something in Thailand,” he explained.
PREVIOUS PAGE
