Con Troll

Hm. I may have just experienced what the kids these days call an 'epiphany'...or at least a slight kick to the frontal lobe that has me thinking about things.

I was recently reading a friend's blog post on the birth of her new baby girl. She talked about their birth plan, which was incredibly detailed and specific. I felt a momentary twinge of guilt. When I was pregnant with Eli I never once even thought about a birth plan or course of action when labor hit. I knew I wanted drugs, I knew I was going to be in a hospital, but that is about where it ended.

Pondering on this I thought maybe it's because I'm ok with things being out of my control. That's not to say that people who make detailed plans and have very specific expectations for things are control freaks or any other pejorative phrase. I greatly respect those in my circle who are detail oriented. I just have never been like that. I seem to thrive when a a bit of chaos is present. Not too much, mind you, but just a little.

I think that's one reason epidurals and pain medication makes so much sense to me when thinking about labor. I don't have to plan anything really. I can leave it up to someone else to get things going and get the pain managed. It's probably also why I really do get a bit of a rush flying standby when I travel. I never really know what is going to happen but the decision on whether I go or not is left to a system, not to me. It's as close to gambling as a little Mormon girl like me can get.

I do love organization, don't get me wrong, but I also enjoy situations that are unplanned and unpredictable. I probably will never have a detailed birth plan when I have a baby because there are so many thousands of variables that come up I just would rather let things happen and go from there. I will probably never be the type of mom who can manage to remember every single item needed for a successful trip to the pool, beach, park, ect. (mostly because I am so scatterbrained) but at least we go, right?

Re-reading what I wrote here this all sounds like self justification for disorganization. Let me just sum up by saying I do believe very strongly in plans and forethought, but I also love when things go differently (in most situations) and life takes me by surprise. Ugh. Now I just sound like Oprah.