Order in the court

The 60s and 70s were times of upheaval and turmoil by most readings of American history. But my life back then was comfortingly orderly. We grew up with simple routines that were, looking back on them, almost comforting. Every school-day morning the clock radio flipped to 7 a.m. and woke us to the sounds of WBTM’s playlist that seemed to consist solely of Paul Simon tunes. My sister and I knew to slip on the clothes that had been laid out the night before. We could hear Daddy in the kitchen boiling water for our cereal. Mama combed our hair while we spooned our oatmeal. Even the last minute rush out the door was part of the normalcy of our mornings.

Then it was laundry on Friday, housework on Saturday morning and church on Sunday. And still there was time on Sunday afternoons to take a drive to visit family friends. By sundown on Sunday we’d still be playing tag and catching lightning bugs while our parents lingered over their goodbyes. No one was frantically trying to get ready for the next frantic week. It was peaceful because times were different. But also because my parents lived and raised us according to their sense of order.

What happened? Those routines worked for all of us—or seemed to. (My mother was often late for things but never frazzled and frantic as I so often am.) So why am I not following that lead?

In so many ways, I’m freer than my parents were. There are fewer rules, more choices and more "conveniences," so my life is much more “anything goes” than theirs. And while that would seem to make things so much easier, it also seems to open the door to chaos. Having a whole cornucopia of choices means… well, that we have to wade through all of them and decide what to do. Frankly, it’s all too much.

I’m not nostalgic for the 70s. (The eyeglass frames alone are enough to make me never wish to turn back time.) But I need more order in my life.

People who know me will think I’m heading into OCD territory; I have a rep for being pretty organized. But “order” the way I’m thinking about it feels a little different from “organization.” The latter has a whiff of everything-in-its-place rigidity. Order feels more fluid, more instinctive. Order isn’t uptight, but it is focused. It’s about being on purpose.

My first step toward a more orderly life: A more orderly mind. My brain is so frantic with thoughts that it’s hard to get a thought-out thought…out. You’ve got to make sense to yourself, self-help guru Iyanla Vanzant likes to say. I’m so busy doing and going and rushing and responding to the needs of other people that my hours are often consumed by tasks that seem necessary at the time, but that don’t always yield much at the end of the day. Even getting my life in order has become a task that I’m rushing through and tripping over.

I’ve got to stop. Stop trying to keep up with the self- and society-imposed demands to respond— instantly and cleverly—to every request that hits my desk or my ear. I need to be still long enough to see what’s really needed. (First, I need to check for what I need. But that’s a post for another day.) I need to stop to get a sense of what really makes sense and a sense of how best to move toward that. If I give myself space to breathe and think—and ease myself away from the tendency toward swift, blind reaction—I have the feeling that a sense of order will follow. May it be Divine Order.

Making Plans

I’ve asked and asked and asked: What is our mission? What are our plans? What are we going to do together? What does our Big Picture look like?

And I haven’t, for the life of me, been able to get a clear answer from my husband.

I don’t know if he can’t answer. If he won’t answer. Do the questions offend him? Are they too esoteric? Do they just seem silly? Is he just the type of person who wants to flow wherever life takes him? Is he a “let go and let God” guy who believes that you don’t have to plan at all? Does he think planning is futile? Unnecessary? Ineffective? I don’t quite know what be believes. And has been driving me crazy.

Eventually I started thinking, “Ef it! If he won’t talk about a plan for our life, then I’ll just start making plans of my own.” I began to throw myself into creating long-range plans and short-term schedules. I started fleshing out ideas that I’ve had, putting some meat on those dreams. Getting organized. Getting disciplined. Getting ready to roll.

It has bothered me to set goals that don’t include him, but I've felt t like I have no choice. The call to get moving is very strong, but I’m the kind of person who can’t press the gas without some directions, a map, a destination in mind. I need a plan for my life. I'm going to have a plan for my life. Period.

And then the revelation came.

Maybe that was the point: For me to do it for myself. It's my life, after all. I know myself well enough to know that if he had responded to my queries about his dreams and goals, I would have thrown myself wholeheartedly into his vision for our future. Because the reality is that I didn’t have a clear vision of my own aspirations. I had reached my previously set career goals (The NY magazine job). I had spent the past few years catching up on my personal goals (Marriage? Check. Child? Check. House? Check.). Now what? I had no idea.

That’s why I was pushing so hard for us to talk about it. I was hoping that he would help get me motivated or that we would motivate one another. In the end, not having a response from him ignited a fine-then-I’ll-show-YOU attitude that fired me up to get off my ass and start to think about the life I want.

To be honest, I’m still not absolutely clear on where I want my life to go. (Hmm, could that be why Said Husband has been so closed-lipped? He doesn’t quite know the answer to the questions I’ve been asking?) But I know some things I want in place. I know how I want my life to feel. I know I can find the ways and means. How, exactly, will it come together? I don’t quite know. But I’m working on a plan.

Keep Something To Yourself

Okay, okay, I admit it: My name is not Zenia. (That’s a derivative of my grandmother’s name--a woman who needed a Plan B if ever there was one.) Everything else on the blog is true, though all the names have been created to protect the inno… the people I’m writing about.

When I started this blog, I needed to be anonymous because, frankly, I was pretty disgruntled with the state of my situation. I needed to vent. I needed to work some things out. I knew I needed to “go There” but I didn’t know where “There” might be and I didn’t want to risk shocking or offending or embarrassing anyone along the way. But I didn’t want to censor myself, either. Where better than the blogosphere to be totally you…and be totally invisible?

It didn’t take long before I started to think about coming out. Invisibility is apparently not a cure for the identity loss I mention in my profile. (That's true, too.) So I did what I always do when I have to make a decision. I carefully weighed the pros and cons. Then I asked all my friends for advice.

Now, my circle includes a wide-ranging collection of minds, so I was not surprised that each gave a different reason for her answer. But ultimately each answer was the same: To a woman, they all said, “Keep it to yourself.”

Was it not yet ready for prime time? No, they said they appreciated the premise. They praised the writing. But they knew it was mine—and they encouraged me to have something of my own.

Indeed, these passages are about having a room of one’s own—if only a virtual one. This blog (and perhaps every blog) is about having your own place—a place where you can just be yourself and speak your piece, without repercussions or self-incrimination or self-censoring. Without mincing your words or retracting your thoughts.

Ultimately, if it is to have any value beyond me, Plan B stops being just about me venting and plotting my escape from an unsatisfactory life. It’s about women (and men) taking control of their lives again.

A couple of months ago, when I wrote about “having your own” I had money on my mind. But I realize now that having your own is about more than what’s in your Birkin. It’s about owning something that no one has given you and that no one can take. It’s about having something that you hold in your heart that you value and love. It’s that thing you possess in full, with no co-signer. The stock market can’t crush it; the bank can’t foreclose on it; it can’t be outsourced, downsized, diminished, discounted or divorced.

This is the question that began Plan B: What do you have that is truly your own?
This is the question that each post asks and encourages us all to answer: What do you own that no one can take from you?

What I have is my name. And it isn’t Zenia. It’s Tamara.