10/5/08 A new obscenity...

It seems that most of the military ladies that I come in contact with just happen to be planners. They plan dinner for their families, a spouse's coffee, a cross-country PCS move, their children's birthday parties, summer vacation, lunch with friends. The list goes on forever.

I, too, love to plan and thrive on routine. I love having every day mapped out, knowing exactly what each hour block will hold...0800-0900: coffee and e-mails, 1100-1300: watch Hubby study, 1600-1700: relax, 2100-2200: get ready for bed, etc.

But along came the military, which absolutely prohibits planning for the future. I have tried to manipulate the system in order to plan for something, but have inevitably ended up sleeping on the floor of an empty apartment for ten days, having a romantic dinner alone, or moving on our first anniversary. All I can do is laugh at my thinking that I could conquer this feisty beast!

I am reluctantly learning that I can't plan for the future...even a day in advance. My hubby's flight schedule for the next day is not posted until about 1800 the night before. After months of this, it is still almost sinful to me. But I have finally grasped that our new routine is a lack of any routine.

It has opened me up to a word that was once vulgar to me-"spontaneity." Who would have thought that I would begin to enjoy such an obscenity? It has allowed for impromptu beach days, breakfast dates, lunch dates, dinner dates, weekend trips, midday movies and shopping.

While the military lifestyle does not let you plan for anything too far in the future, it does allow for speed planning for those of us that are obsessive planners. Case in point: PCSing. In our experience, it's almost impossible to know when the orders will arrive, announcing the impending move. But when the orders do come, it's like someone has fired the gun in the air and you hop off of those starting blocks, sprinting full speed ahead making calls to the moving company, to the base housing office and realtors, making arrangements for a final farewell with friends, organizing your house into "pack" and "don't pack," cleaning your house to try to get your full deposit back. The list goes on forever.

So while you might not be able to plan on a daily basis, you make up for it in the times of marathon planning. This should satisfy us Type A's. While I may be forced into a planning fast most days, it makes up for it at the end when I can feast!