Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Thoughts on shifting

About this time last year, I was so action-packed full of Two Year Plans and Other Grand Adventures that I thought absolutely nothing could stand in my way of fulfilling all of my grand ambitions. Little did I know, that my life would be taking a wildly different course than I had planned.

That's the thing about plans: you need backup plans for them.

I spend very little time in my studio these days, and I'm OK with that.

I pay for search ads on Etsy for a shop that I've neglected woefully (and will probably shut down, temporarily, while I'm wrapping my head around my new adventure).

While I wrote and published one book, and illustrated another, I've backburnered the topic for the time being, because I really only wrote the first book for my gram as a Christmas gift.

I don't remember the last time I was on Pinterest or Craft Gawker -- which is unusual for me, since those were multiple-times-a-day visits once-upon-a-time.

I've realized that plans shift. They're malleable and rather sandy. Topics that were important yesterday seem rather pointless in the current moment. And I guess that's why it's so important to live in the present, focusing on what's in front of you right now.

This isn't to say that I won't resume my regularly scheduled programming, so to speak, but that I'm honoring the shift that's happened in my head and in my life.  I've retreated from the constant focus on THE PLANS into a kind of quiet wait-and-see holding pattern while I, well, wait and see what's in store. Because my carefully laid plans got waylaid by a different kind of planning; a good kind of planning for the life that will be here before I know it.

Sometimes the road is supposed to shift. Sometimes you're supposed to take a different path for a while. And sometimes all that planning you did for something else was just to lead you to where you are right now.

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