Today was just another day of plans gone awry because of variables beyond my control.

Or were they? 

Beyond my control, that is. I could have gone to the bank early today, but my husband made an appointment with an Internet provider. But the company representative’s flight from a conference arrived very late last night and he decided to take the day off. OK. I get that.

Last Friday, the community gardener had promised to wash my car–it really needed it. But he got pulled away when the garden guys game to spray the greenery for pests and couldn’t get to it. He stopped by this morning to do the promised service. I was so grateful to get the car washed that I didn’t care that this would cut into the rest of my planned day. 

Living on the island of St. Martin, I have learned a great deal about plans just fizzling into the nether spheres. I have learned, for the most part, to go with the flow of the balmy breezes. Not in all things, but in enough that, back home in the States, would drive me to distraction and great anxiety. Back home, I was deadline and appointment driven. Here, I just accept that the Fates–or God–have chosen a different path for me this day. 

Instead of getting all bent out of shape from my morphed agenda, I decided to finish tracing in ink a ZIA I did in pencil over the weekend. I had lost the light to finish working, and just set it aside. 

Today, it didn’t come out as well as the pencil drawing, but that was so light that even with bright daylight streaming into my living room I still could not trace properly. Worst of all, I lost my focus for shading, and erased several times before finally just letting it be. Not my best work, but infinitely less stressful than if I had produced it in ink from the start. 

But life is like that. We forget how often we need to adjust to feel productive in a day. 

Was I productive today? It depends on how you define productive. Did I accomplish today’s goals? No. Did I accomplish anything at all? Yes. I finished this drawing. I was blessed with a new day; when original plans went awry, I did not panic and become anxious. I went with the flow and found something interesting to do. In this case, I completed something I could not finish two days ago. That is an accomplishment for me in itself. 

Today, I was given another day to waste or to accomplish my original tasks or adjust to fit within today’s confounding interruptions. Did I waste another day? Depends on how you view life. I don’t think I wasted a day, and that counts for a lot. 

Happy tangling!

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#educ_dr