5-Year Plans

I trace my aversion to 5-year-plans back to the sudden death of my paternal grandmother. I was 11 years old and in 6th grade. The evening we received the phone call notifying us of her accident, I was scheduled to participate in a debate at the science fair. The debate topic was the pros and cons of using styrofoam containers — CFCs and ozone depletion were big concerns at the time. As they hurried out the door to the hospital, my parents urged me to go to my debate. In a city two hours away, my grandma was in critical condition following a head-on collision with a family of four.

My older brother escorted me across the street to the community center. A maze of folding tables covered the wood-floored gym and displayed elementary-level science fair projects. I sat on the stage for my debate thinking my grandmother would be OK in the morning. My heart crumpled when my parents returned the next day. My grandma died in the ER. She was 60 years old.

I wore a matching, rayon fabric, black and fuchsia floral button-down shirt and skirt set to my grandma’s funeral. I wrote a poem for the occasion that I thought I could read, but my Dad read it for me instead. I watched as her urn of ashes was placed in the wall of the mausoleum, next to her husband, my grandfather.

I am left with fuzzy memories of a beautiful, white-haired woman with twinkling blue eyes and a mischievous grin. Occasionally, she took my brothers and me bowling, then out to Pizza Hut. She laughed as we blew straw wrappers across the table at each other. I marveled at her white leather bowling bag that contained her bowling ball — glitter red with her middle name, “RUBY,” engraved on it — and shoes for league play. She watched bowling and golf on TV on the weekends. She was a gifted illustrator and calligrapher. She smoked too many cigarettes. She survived heart attacks and breast cancer. She was a retired school bus driver. She looked absolutely striking dressed in sapphire blue. Her laugh was gentle and jolly, revealing a secret delight in the antics of my brothers and me. I think of her when I see cardinals and handwritten letters. I remember her style, her taste in furniture and china patterns. I have many pieces of her costume jewelry. She seemed modern and decadent.

In the years that followed her death, my extended family splintered as my grandmother’s estate sat in litigious purgatory. She was on the wrong side of the road when she collided with the car carrying a family of four. Two different accident re-constructionists could not determine how or why she was in the opposing traffic's travel lane. The family sued. My Dad managed her estate’s legal and financial concerns until the suit was finally settled after 11 years.

The chasm and conflict resulting from my grandmother's death imprinted many lessons on me. I'm still uncovering the more subtle ones. Most notably, though, is the lesson of embracing uncertainty. At heart I am a planner, a scheduler, and lover of agendas and lists and neatly-labeled calendars. But I am not a long-range planner. One year out is too far. Six months is stretching it. Mention the words, "strategic planning" or "5-year plan", and I feel hot. My blood pressure rises a point or two. Those words sound like gambling to me; like I'm leaning too hard on certain outcomes that just aren't guaranteed.

Because nothing in this life is guaranteed. There are too many variables for there to be certainty — including the other humans involved, not to mention deus ex machina. While I may fill my planner with dates and activities and trips and lists, I look at these pen strokes as wishes, dreams, and ideas. Maybe this perspective is just a mind game I play with semantics to keep me from being too disappointed when plans don’t pan out as intended. But maybe, too, it gives me the freedom to change course when a plan isn’t fulfilling or in alignment with who I am. Maybe this is what gives me permission to start a business, relocate, or try something new and unknown.

Through her living my grandma taught me that life should be filled with beauty, art, pizzazz, and humor. The aftermath of her death taught me that life is unpredictable. Families are complicated. Forgiveness is paramount. And love is what matters more than anything. With love, I can do anything, even without a 5-year plan.