When life gets in the way.

I had every intention of posting at least two to three times a week, but as the old saying goes, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

My poor Father in Law is back in hospital, and is very ill, and my husband isn’t taking it well. I am having server issues which have been preventing me from getting online as much as I would like, and health issues yet again that have meant my whole day feels as if I’m wading through treacle and can only get a tenth done of what I could normally. Not that I’m moaning, just making excuses really.

The poor allotment has been sorely neglected since the clocks went back to daylight saving, as my day runs out of light long before I have a chance to think about gardening. My plans of making many Christmas presents have had to be greatly reduced just because of my time constrictions and lack of energy.

So for anyone who has been reading my blog and thinking “How does she do it all?” you now know the sad truth of the matter; I am not the Martha Stewart you all thought I was! I’m just as human as the next woman, even if I do hate to admit it myself.

I really need to sit down and re-arrange my daily schedule, so I can get down to the allotment before 4pm when it gets dark, and still get online before the kids come home from school and slow down my internet connection until gone midnight.

So what got me thinking like this? Well I watched a program on telly tonight where a couple were looking for a new home, it’s called ‘Relocate, Relocate’ and the experts show the couple how to set up a shopping list for the sort of new home they are looking for, and then help them find it within their budget. I was watching it with only half an eye as I prepared dinner (boy do I hate having to do that every day! Life would be so much easier if hubby took turns with me at that!). Anyway, the couple that were featured today were ‘Do everything by the numbers’ people. You know the sort of people I’m talking about; they actually had a life plan! 1. Move to London, get good jobs, and earn lots of money. 2. Move back to the sticks and have children. 3. Send kids to college, move to a smaller home and get old, and all that sort of thing.

They were at the second stage for this program. But it got me thinking, I don’t have a life plan, I don’t have a yearly plan or even a daily plan some days. Maybe that is where I’m going wrong with my life!

I just bumble along, grab at opportunities (or husbands ;-) ) when they amble my way, and try, in general, to go with the flow. Now don’t get me wrong, I think being laid back is a wonderful way to be, but I don’t want to be so laid back I’m virtually comatose, which is what I am feeling like at the moment!

I am at that couple’s third life stage, my kids have left home with college under their belts, but somewhere along the line I skipped the first stage, I live in London, but I’ve never earned a reasonable wage, let alone bucket loads of money to enable me to move to the sticks to raise my kids and grow old gracefully! And I suspect that is the case for the majority of people, and I got to wondering why that is?

In my case I think it was because, as a child I chose to be a writer when I grew up, and was told that I would never make a living at it and would be better off learning to type. Hmmm, not quite the thing to tell a five year old I think. At the grand old age of eight I came up with the idea of being a medicinal botanist, (David Bellamy and Florence Nightingale are to blame for that one I think!) I even knew which exams I had to take at 16 to get in to college to start on that career! (See! I had a life plan forming there!) Again I was told to concentrate on learning my three ‘R’s and typing, as they would make a woman employable.

I still hadn’t forgotten wanting to be a writer though, and at 13 I had a short story published in a fantasy magazine. I thought I had made a break through with my family, and they would let me follow the writer’s career, but no, the money I earned went towards my new school uniform, and I was forced to take typing and short hand in school. My parent’s life plan for me was finally revealed; I was to work in a typing pool until I found a nice young man, then settle down to have children. I didn’t need an expensive education, and any fanciful thoughts of writing in a garret were to be forgotten right away. I rebelled quite violently, but eventually I settled down to the life that had been mapped out so carefully for me.

So I fell at the first stumbling block. I allowed others to take away my ambition, and without ambition there is no call for a life plan, and I suspect that is what happens to a lot of people.

After the children left home, I tried again. I entered two short stories in a competition, and won first and third prizes! Whoo Hoo! Ambition was restored, and I set to with a will and wrote a book and sent it off to a publisher, only to be rejected. My Husband seemed to loose interest and I lost the will to pursue it further. Oh well, stumbling block number two.

As you get older, ambition seems to get in short supply as well. How can you have ambition when you’re trying to put food on the table, and cloths on the kid’s backs? I know that is an ambition in its own right, but it is not a life ambition, is it? Boy I hope not!

So I have been distracted for way too long, and now I’m looking into the sunset of my life, with a long path of regrets behind me, and very little time to right those regrets. Can you make a life plan at my age? I don’t know, but I think I’m going to try.