5 year plan?

Do people still do that? Do they still make and try to follow five year plans? I don't have plans for the next five days. Is that because I'm lost? Or because I am found? I am seriously trying to see where 2018 wants to take me. I'm trying to make the best of whatever Is (not make the best of my past, or make the best of what will be, but stay in the Present moment). I'm trying to not complain, but to see beauty and learning in everything. I'm trying to "grow where I'm planted". Or transplanted, as the case may be. It seems like a lot my life has been inspired by frustration. I'm still want a life of inspiration, but the more peaceful kind. Maybe this blog is a reminder to myself to keep doing things worth writing about.

Five years ago did I have a plan? In January of 2013 where was I? Apple Valley in California. The high desert. We had lived there for five months, after living in Las Vegas for many years. We rented a cute little house, we had three teenagers still living with us. We had a puppy, two pygmy goats, five chickens, and a four foot ball python, and some rescued goldfish in a tank. We had all the trappings. It was my first chance to stay home and be a mom in probably a decade. We had a trampoline, a little pool, fruit trees, and a big garden.
In January 2014 where was I? We had moved to Cedar City in Utah. We rented a crazy old house that was three stories, two kitchens, and six bedrooms for about the same price as the house in California. I was working for a call center of pure madness. If you didn't have ADHD and ADD both, then you didn't survive. Four months after the training was completed there were only three of us left from a class of twenty one. It was the first time in many many years that I experienced real snow.
In January 2015 we were down to one teenager and I was working for a company that helps house and train people with disabilities.
In January 2016 we had moved into a cute two bedroom apartment and gave away so much 'stuff' it was ridiculous. None of the animals moved with us. Work. Buy. Consume. Die. That's what I understood. Well, maybe I understood more, but that was most of what I was experiencing. There were two of us and we had three vehicles. I was working a job that I loved, but it was consuming me and the pay was very low for the effort I gave. The hours were demanding with a schedule I was in charge of, but staff kept quitting and I had to keep adapting. I was the manager. I filled in all the blanks for shifts. I trained all the new people. This company had some hard core clients. There were all kinds of issues with anxiety and aggression, a mad mix. The staff turnover was something like 70%.
In January 2016 I was still working that crazy demanding job, ready for abnormal people, but also ready for some normal hours. Not texts and calls all day and all night. I woke up one day and HR told me - Hey, are you going to use some of your sixty hours of paid vacation, or what? I had no idea. I took one day off every week for a while. I worked for that company for two years. I had to fight to keep my hours at only forty a week, sometimes not succeeding. I only missed one shift ever. I was called in to work from a hike a few times, cursing my good phone service and that I had brought my phone, and answered it. I was in charge. I was a problem solver twenty four hours a day. My clients were creative with inventing new problems. I didn't know I was going to get the flu, change jobs, and take a month to visit my mother in Costa Rica.
In January 2017 I was in Costa Rica. My one month vacation became an accidental retirement. I'm now "self unemployed", as my friend Gerry would say. Did I have a plan? No. I had a program though, January 1st I started Love Your Life in 30 Days. I guess it works. In January I had no idea I would go to Europe for three months, then back to Costa Rica, then to the U.S. for four months, take a side trip back home to Canada, and then go back to Costa Rica.
Now it's January 2018. Do I have a plan? Do I really need one? If I had made a plan and was self disciplined to stick to it, it would not have included a trip to various countries in Europe. I would have wished that big, but I wouldn't have believed and planned that big. What does 2018 have in store for me?? I don't know. I only know enough to be excited about it. I think my old affirmation is paying off. "My life is a statement of unlimited possibilities".
I admire people with five year plans. I admire people who work hard to make things happen. I feel like 2017 was the opposite. I worked hard to let things happen. That's my goal for 2018 on an even bigger scale. I may need a bigger map!
I'm just kidding, I have a five day plan. I have two things that I really want to do in those five days. I have a five week plan too. I have a friend coming to experience Costa Rica with us, and after that we are planning a trip to Mexico to see cenotes and learn about Mayan things.
I have learned to stop wishing, and start dreaming. If that makes sense. Mira! Have you seen pictures of cenotes? They look magnificent.