Change of Plan
Tuesday Tidings #16
It is early Saturday morning. I make my way down the hallway from the communal dining room to the big room where everyone will gather. It is part of the weekend’s schedule before the first class of the day begins. From now until late this evening, a full day of training lies ahead of me.
But I am unsettled. Not because of anything anyone said or did. No, I am unsettled within myself. It started in January when the bitter cold of the polar vortex of doom froze everything for a solid three weeks. It became manifest in the plumbing back up in my basement that coincided with a snow and ice storm, which, due to the deep freeze, blanketed the ground for weeks. It settled in with a hard no on something I thought I needed (and also wanted). And alongside the personal upheavals, I witnessed a total break down of what I have always understood to be a civilized society.
I have written around, through, and about all of that, in one way or another, in every weekly post since January 20. (You can find them all, in sequence, right here on my Substack under the Weekly Posts tab).
When I created this space to share my journey with starting over in life, career, (and, now, it turns out, also love), any kind of plan I may have had (really, tbh, I did not have a solid plan) has changed many times over. Even now, this space continues to evolve. Maybe that is the plan…hmmm.
Until the start of this year, I have been mostly ok with that. Since doing any of this was all new to me, it offered many opportunities for me to grow and change in the doing of it without expecting much from it. But at the start of a 2026, the switch of fear flipped. Add three long weeks of being indoors mostly by myself and the fear kicked into high gear and along with it, brought pride and self-will. The combination of all three, in me, sounds something like this: Things are not happening fast enough or coming together well enough. In fact, they seem to be falling apart and breaking down. I need to push harder, move faster and do more. When that does not work, I will stomp my feet with an alternating mix of rage and despair.
But I already know, from experience, that is not the answer. I know my plan needs to change. The issue is that I don’t want to change it. I want to do this, whatever this is, my way. I want what I want the way I want it and I want it now. Right now.
Which is why, when I arrived for my training weekend on Friday, I wanted to lean in. No, I needed to lean in. I was more than ready to dig in and dig out all the frustration, and underneath that, my deep well of resistance that permeates every ounce of my being. It pulls every muscle, every fiber, every cell, inward to form a hardened shell not of distance but of defiance.
After I arrive in the big room, we collectively move for maybe fifteen continuous minutes. It is a joyous mayhem of dance, sometimes with another person, sometimes in a group, and mostly alone. Together, we calibrate, and I can feel something dislodge and an opening emerge. Finally.
No sooner do we finish and come back to a grounded center than an announcement is made.
“Due to the incoming blizzard, and to ensure everyone’s safety, we are cutting the weekend short. That means after dinner, the rest of this weekend’s program is suspended.”
Instantly my heart drops down into the pit of my stomach and my head swirls.
Since I arrived in Friday, I really have not been on my phone, and, except for posting a sunrise pic from my early morning walk, I have been off social media. I had no idea such a big storm was on the way. And even if I had any inkling, it had long since escaped my mind. I am caught totally by surprise.
In my legs I feel the frustration build. “Great, one more thing I won’t get to do the way I had planned it.” The frustration joins up with my resistance and my defiance. “Well, why bother then? I should just take off now. Perfect reason to bail.” Together, they would love nothing more than to launch some kind of attack. But at whom? and for what? The weather? Nobody can control that.
This is (yet again) all about acceptance. And I hate that. A lot.
Almost twelve hours later, I am curled up on the couch in the scrumptious warmth of my home away from home. Not only did I have a parking spot saved for me but I also had dinner brought to me. It may sound like a small thing, but those two loving acts are significant to me.
Before I left the retreat center, a group of students put together a communal experience around grief (in the original plan for the weekend, that was supposed to happen Sunday morning). It included the option to pick a sentence stem from a list of prompts, and write about it. Of course, I chose to do that and picked the stem, “I wanted…” While I will not include here all of what I wrote in my journal, I will say that it surprised me. Turns out, the thing I wanted, the thing I grieved in that moment, or the thing that showed up as something I grieved, was a family. And by family, I mean it in the very traditional sense of a husband and kids of my own.
I make that distinction because I have spent the past five years (since my divorce) learning how to care for myself, handle my business and advocate for myself. I am fully self-supporting emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally, financially and socially. In other words, I got serious about the wide-range of adulting. In the process, I have considered all kinds of alternative arrangements including being permanently single, or living separately from a romantic partner.
Beyond that, over the last twenty years, I built a family of besties, mentors and friends. I am an auntie to many of their kids. With them, I have learned how to receive love and how to offer it in return. It is not new to me that someone else may want to do things for me. What is new to me, and what this change in plans allowed me to see, is that after spending a solid five years getting ok with doing everything for myself, it is new for me to get ok with someone else doing for me. It is something I have actively resisted as much as it has been something, underneath, I have wanted, and, underneath that, which I have grieved not having.
It is that loss that sits at the heart of my frustration.
Two days later, when I wake up in the middle of a blizzard, I notice that instead of being mad at yet another big snow storm, I hop out of bed, and trudge gleefully down the street to get an early morning hot coffee. Instead of lamenting what I did not get over the weekend, I appreciate the unexpected shared day off I got to spend with someone I love. And instead of getting hung up on the lack of measurable results, I feel excitement, and even joy, for what I create and how. I am (re)inspired.
As I write this post and look back over the last two months, I recognize that all the changes (in the plans that I had), all the things that did not happen (the way I planned for them to happen), and all the ways in which I resisted (new plans being handed to me), have brought me to a place of slowing down, doing less, and focusing in. Yep, I am in a place of surrender.
It is not the plan I had in mind. It is the change of plan I can now accept from my heart.
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Meals Out: Because the plan changed, I did not have all my meals at the retreat center this weekend. Instead, I ended up walking through the beautiful falling snow hooked into the arm of the man I love to have dinner down the street from my…well, home.
Listening (voice): A dear friend sent me a link to the latest episode of The Gathering Room (link to show on Spotify), and I listened to it (How to Dance Sideways, link to episode on Apple Podcasts) on my drive from Connecticut to NYC. Kind of the perfect time to hear this particular take on how I can reformulate my plan, or, really, how to narrow down the next steps of the plan (or as I currently feel it: slow down, trim down, focus in).
Listening (song most likely on repeat): Really have not listened to any music. Just not part of the plan this week.
Watching: I am re-watching all five seasons of Breaking Bad (not as a solo activity). True confessions: I have missed some of that (or taken a nap in the middle of it). Every time I watch any of this, Better Call Saul (some part of me prefers the prequel to the original, and I’m guessing the prequel was not part of the original plan and that it emerged from the success of the main show and the show-stopping character Saul aka Jimmy…I would seem that unexpected wonders can pop out of one plan if I am willing to follow the shifts and notice the changes), and more recently, Plur1bus, I am blown away by Vince Gilligan’s incredible gift for storytelling. Truly stunning.
Most Hours Logged Doing: Well, I was at a training weekend, and then the plan changed, so I went from spending most of my time learning to most of my time relaxing. As I mentioned above, I did not get on social media or post much of anything and it was such a wonderful, unplanned and also intentional vacation. Will definitely build in more of that offline-ness as I plan the next steps of how my schedule comes together in the months ahead. I have some plans—and I know those plans will change. On that note, my plan to release a new episode of the Discoball Tour docu-series on Friday may change. Stay tuned!
Tuesday Morning Meditation: 2.24.25
Make a plan to change with the change of plan.
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Beautiful. Thank you for sharing your journey and your heart Hella. I love you❤️