The Plan

I'm at the age where people ask me a lot about my "plans" for the "future." And I'm like, "Well, I'll probably have grilled cheese for dinner, unless I change my mind and want a ham sandwich instead." (For some reason, they don't find that as amusing as I do.)

I think not having a plan comes across as lazy to some people. I get that. There are people that have The Plan from career day in kindergarden, who dressed up like a doctor for Halloween every year, and worked their butts off with an eye single to the glory of doctor-dom. That's great. 

There are other people that at least kind of think they know where their life is heading. They can rattle off the facts of their current plan with no problem. Usually, they're still trying to decide what kind of engineer they want to be or if they want to teach middle or high school. 

And then there's me. I can tell you with 100% honesty that I have regressed plan-wise since kindergarden. Like, seriously, intensely regressed. 

When I was five-to-nine-ish, my plan was solid. I was going to marry a prince named Derek (like in The Swan Princess), thus becoming a princess myself, but never a queen because "queen" sounded old. Simple, stream-line, and impressive. This charmed adults. 

Sometime around my 10th birthday, I decided that it would be pretty sweet to be in the air force or be an astronaut  This was probably because I had a little brother who was finally old enough to have interests, and his interests were planes. My family spent a lot of time talking about, researching, and looking at fighter jets and such. Combine that with my intense love of all things Star Wars (Original Trilogy only.) and you got a dorky little kid who pretended that the playground swings were pilot seats. I'm pretty sure this phase replaced what would have been my horse phase. This both impressed and alarmed adults. 

Enter middle school guidance counselors. One day, in the middle of November, our excessively cheery carer counselor visited my 6th grade class. We were forced to take a quiz online that would supposedly suggest viable career options. My top three were dramatics teacher, ice skater, and ambassador. By 12, I was smart enough to know that money was important (and I didn't know how to ice skate) so I decided that ambassador was probably my best bet. By 8th grade, I had fallen in love with Spanish. I decided that I would become the US's ambassador to Spain. This impressed adults. 

In 10th grade, I realized I didn't really love Spanish as much as I thought I did, and decided I would be a biologist. Don't remember why. This also impressed adults.

By junior year, I had entered a stage of rebellion and discovered my love of writing. My parents had always told me that they would support my career choices, but tened to steer me away from the Education field. So naturally, I started telling people that I wanted to be an English teacher. I still think about being an English teacher, but only when I'm sitting by myself in dark rooms. I continued telling people my English teacher plan for the rest of high school and for some of college. This caused adults to fake a smile and say, "Good for you, dear."

 

These days, I cycle through plans hour by hour. I've watched enough Law & Order: SVU to think that being a police detective would be an interesting job. I've thought about learning Arabic and working for the State Department. My current major is psychology (I'll roll my eyes for you). Working for the FBI sounds like a sweet gig. So does writing a best-seller out of my dad's attic (sorry dad). 

So, yeah, I have no plan. Maybe I'll have one tomorrow, or in a month, or a year, or a decade. I don't know. Things will happen.

And Prince Harry is still single so I've still got time to be a princess. 

x,

    m