Spontaneous Planning

Gary got a six-day stretch of days off at the end of September, and on Friday, his first day off, we were discussing what he planned to do with the time.

This led to a discussion about how we each approach the day, the week and the month quite differently. I asked him what goals he had set for his Friday.

I got a look like I was from Mars....or is it Venus....whatever that book said.

It should have come as no surprise to me--I know my husband. But truthfully the thought of approaching any day without a bullet-point list in ones head boggles my mind. To Gary, the thought of organizing ones day so much boggles his mind.

I explained to him that when I wake I up, I immediately begin my mental list of my itinerary and goals for the day. I may not accomplish them all, but I generally have a strategy for how my day will work. This is in conjunction with my planner, which never leaves my side and helps me to document any scheduled activities that we have planned.

Gary explained to me that he really just does things when he feels like it and that all the suggested items I had thrown out for his daily schedule could be done later. (I tend to keep a running list of honey-dos, and the list for September had gotten quite lengthy.)

This wait and see concept my husband so loves is foreign to me, but reminded me of a particular vacation that he and I took.

About four or five summers ago, Gary and I decided we would take a four day trip, just the two of us. I was working full-time and he was in residency, but was on an easier schedule than normal and said he would work out all of the details. So we dropped Zach off with my mom and dad, and off we went on our trip.

As it turned out, Gary's idea of a fun trip was to have basically no plan at all, no reservations and just to visit places on a whim and kind of see where the road took us. And as it turned out, with my type-A personality, this proved to be somewhat challenging for me to handle. I can specifically recall several times that I was beyond frustrated as we would try to do something and it would be closed or not as expected. Now truthfully, we did also have some fun on that trip...it was not all bad. We ate at some fun restaurants and we stayed at an incredible hotel one night, but it was not at all relaxing for me. As my sweet husband would say, I was wound tight.

These days, we tend to find middle ground for our vacations. I don't plan every tiny detail and he agrees to hotel reservations and general plans for daily activities.

And so our agreement for his six days off this month is this: we set some "goals" for things to be done within that time frame, and not on specific days. I mean, after all, I can agree to be spontaneous....with a little planning, of course.