Freedom!

My mother always had a stash in a personal account, separate (but not secret) from the household. In it, she had enough money to buy an airline ticket to just about anywhere in the world. She had it, she said, in case she needed to leave. For years I thought she meant "to take care of an emergency", "to see her parents/friends", or even "to visit London on a whim." It wasn't. She had the cash on hand because not having it meant she was a prisoner in her own life.

I finally understand her actions. Not because I'm unhappy (as she was), but because of ToDo.

I need lists. Grocery lists (usually) keep me from overspending - and if I get what I went in for (extras be damned) then they've done at least one job. Class lists help me remember who's going to be in my room that day, allowing me to put a mental face with a name before they actually start gathering at the door - a sort of non-tele-prompter for the socially challenged. And my ToDo helps me organize myself when I have too much spinning in my head.

When I have too much spinning in my head. That's the key. Not when I'm happy, or when I'm not busy at work, or when I'm without a car (for four weeks!) - it's when I have so much going on I need help sifting through it all.

Yeah, my malaise was not because I'm happy but because my nice, safe little compartment-rich house of cards slowly, slowly, slowly turned into The Bastille. And I escaped it.

Again.

Life is a banquet, right? And most poor suckers are starving, right? And I'd locked myself into the gridlines of my List as surely as if I'd tied myself to a tree, right?

Absolutely. The breakout happened this morning, just hit my Plan like a wrecking ball, knocking down the Walls of Jericho with a song that sounded like ... Freedom! I was excited, ecstatic, thrilled to realize all I had to do is tear up that horrid piece of paper to feel the honeyed breeze in my hair, taste the sweet choices on my tongue.

And I did - and then I had to share my moment with my husband.

"I just can't keep overplanning, honey," I said, my arms windmilling with the power of being able to windmill. "I tore up that stupid list! I need choices, not rigidity! A suggestion, not an order!"

The love of my life glanced up once, then turned his head away, gazing fixedly at the wall beside the bed. "Mm ..." he said.

"I have to keep myself on my toes, not my ass," I went on, "ready to shift at a moment's notice. Like this weekend - that rummage sale was so much fun, and I love, love, love my three dollar leather jackets! And when (Acid Trip) got sick afterward and we couldn't finish anything around here, I sulked! I sulked like a big, sulky stick-in-the-mud and watched five straight hours of DVD crap!" I huffed as he stifled a smile. Obviously, he wasn't getting my point. "No, seriously! I need to quit acting like Rut Girl! I'm the Queen of Chaos, the Bunny of Change, the - the Woman of Toe-Keeping! I'm free!"

He started convulsing, then pulled the sheet up over his mouth, turned my way ... and laughed at me with his stunning blue eyes. "What?" I asked, confused.

He wouldn't tell me (and probably never will) but it felt familiar, that conversation. Then I remembered. I've said it all before, more or less - but definitely more than once.

Don't you hate it when your existential-crisis profundity turns out to be a rerun?

You'd think by now I'd be used to the rollercoaster that is my emotional and intellectual state, that's I'd be sick of any ah-ha moments that I've had a million times before. And yet, though this morning reminded me of 50 First Dates - who knew I'd paint that same flower twice a year for thirty years - I don't care. Even when the Big Lug laughs at me (or even you do, since I've also posted on this), I don't care. If I have to "discover" this concept a hundred times more, if I have to "figure out" it's time to shift from Meticulous Soup to Possibility Gumbo, to give myself a list of opportunities instead of must do's, then what of it?

I'm free!

Sure, it would be nice to learn to alternate, to remember to take advantage of the ebb and flow at all times - but wouldn't that make it a plan? Wouldn't that lock me into a groove, a rut, a straightjacket just as surely as that list did (again)?

It's time to give myself the freedom of choice (again). Spring is as unpredictable as I seem to be lately, freezing one moment, hot and stuffy the next, Sturming and Dranging enough to break a damn the next. My mom needed money to allow her the fantasy of going on the lam. I already have the dream; I need a different kind of account, one full of projects and treasures that I can use to graze on, to pick and choose from at will, to fill my days with whatever presents itself ... and one that allows me to take advantage of not just my own schedule but any of my kids' (or spouse's) schedules as well in order to get things done.

Gather ye opportunities while ye may. Keep the schedule for the paid job - toss it for the life. That's the plan ... er, the strategy ... uh, the agenda ... oh, hell, it's the rough draft.

For now.

Again.