Now this post has a title, and a good one at that
That’s at least my opinion, while it may not be fact.
For it’s not just a series of words side-by-each,
But rather the point that I’m trying to reach.

I’ve never been great at making decisions,
I don’t make my plans with exaction precision.
That is not to say I can’t make up my mind,
But that when I do, to those plans I feel bind.

When staging events from the large to the small,
I tend to throw all of my thoughts at the wall,
Most of the time what adheres is what’s best,
And I don’t need to fret on what fell and the rest.

But every so often the thing that does land –
The thing that becomes our upcoming plans,
Doesn’t quite go how we thought it would be,
And we end up right here, with more questions than three:

What to do now? What else could we do?
Should we go to a park? Or maybe the zoo?
We had plans in place that would take up our day,
But the powers that be wouldn’t have it that way.

So now we are stuck with a little ‘free time’,
And that is precisely what rattles my mind.
When I make a decision, as hard as it was,
I then set expectations without any pause.

Changing that course, in any which way,
Makes my head spin in the worst kind of way.
I’m in no way adverse to seeing things change,
I do so, in fact, like when things rearrange.

But what sends me in to an uncomfortable tizzy,
Is when time opens up – see I like to be busy.
It’s not that there’s no other option to choose,
The problem, in fact, is there’s too much to do!

Today, for example, we had in our minds
A trip out to Wonderland, for rides of all kinds.
But the mood didn’t strike for all of us Beans,
So we stayed here at home, and we turned off our screens.

Not knowing just we would should do with ourselves,
We looked at all of the game son our shelves,
We thought about other fun places to go,
We toyed with the thought of some time in the snow.

But the more that we thought, the more time that did pass,
And that passage of time just brought more things to ask.
So it got to a point where we just had to say,
Well I guess that we’re just doing nothing today.

Alison and I do rather well at planning out our weekends to include a mix of activity, chores, projects, solo-time and family fun. We’ll often plan our adventures a week or so in advance, and then mark the calendar so that we all know what it is we have to look forward to. It’s a good way of setting everyone’s expectations, but it can also lead to something else, which many may call disappointment, but I would say discomfort.

Plans can fall through, that’s just life. Be it on account of the weather, illness, the car breaking down, technical malfunction, ‘whatever’, things don’t always go as you plan and that’s when we adjust our schedules and make the most of it. What I’ve observed and what we both have commented on, however, is just how awkward we can get during that in between time, especially if it means staying at home for the day. Because we like to keep busy and take on the day, whenever a breakdown in plans results in doing absolutely nothing with the time that remains, we literally have no idea what to do with ourselves and we spin in circles trying to figure it out. A trip to Wonderland falls apart…so now what? Do we go skating? Swimming? Climbing? Go to the gym? Work out here? Take the dog for a forest walk? As I said, it’s not that we suddenly don’t have anything to do – it’s that we have to much to do. Like dogs chasing a car, we see out free time in our lives but once we have it, we have no idea what to do with it.

Fortunately, we know how to laugh at ourselves and catch on to how ridiculous we both sound as we try to figure how the heck we’re going to entertain the girls for the afternoon, all the while they have taken off upstairs to work on dance routines or play with their toys. After an hour or so of deliberation, we settle into place and we’re just fine – I’ve picked up my guitar, Nora has settled into a craft, and Alison and Audrey ultimately decided to go skating downtown. What was meant to be an adventurous day at the theme park has turned into a beautiful afternoon of pursuing personal joys at home. We embrace the opportunity we were given to just relax, even though it took us a little work to get there – namely adding “trip to Wonderland” to our calendar next weekend…