Catching the California Wave

Ever since I’ve been a kid, I’ve been a planner, which I mistakenly confused with preparation. I’ve kept journals, diaries, and notes, detailing my hour, day, week, month, and year. I also had intricate, long-term plans: where I’d live, fitness and financial goals, details and objectives, all intermingled among colorful charts, vision boards, and graphics. It was more than planning; it was sport. 

When I was 17, I moved to Tokyo for seven months as a foreign exchange student. Lost in class at my public high school, I would fill endless journals with hopeful plans for an equestrian career when I returned to the states. I spent countless hours thinking about what type of horse and tack I’d buy, where I’d ride, and care for my horse. Despite hundreds of hours of planning, few of those goals ever materialized. My adult life was micro-planned to an extreme, down to what I’d have for each meal, complete with calorie counts. 

Then 2020 happened. 

My year, as it was for many of us, began innocently enough. On spring break, 2020, I picked up my bubbly junior in high school to take her home for spring break. The pandemic was just starting to become a major concern, but we had no indication that it would hit so close to home. All the planning in the world never would have led me to understand that my daughter, after five dedicated years at her school, would never return again. We had planned out her senior year, how she’d finally get to wear the coveted black polo only worn by the seniors, homecoming, prom, senior pictures, and graduation. We had both planned and dreamed for that year. I imagined that I’d watch her walk across the stage and wondered if I’d be able to fight back an ugly cry. 

Again, none of those plans ever materialized. Instead, senior pictures were with a borrowed cap and gown at a paid site normally reserved for weddings. She ultimately decided, due to multiple pandemic-related issues, to just finish her year online and to graduate early in December. There would be no prom, homecoming, walk across the graduation stage, or ugly cry.

Still, like millions of others, we rolled with the punches, and went with the flow, to some extent. But still, I kept planning; it was my comfort in a time of tremendous change and of challenge. 

The rent on our 2,400 square foot home, two-story home was likely going to be increased once our lease ended, it suddenly seemed like far too much house for a single person whose only child was off at college. Around this time, my almost 14 year-old dog developed cancer and had to be euthanized, only a few days before our move. 

What is it that I wanted? The charts, vision boards, and intense planning continued. I bored countless friends with the microscopic planning. I thought I’d definitely move to California and live in this condo, on this street, by this beach. I planned activities, classes I’d teach, and wrote out a sample daily schedule. 

So, now I find myself living in my parent’s empty home, sleeping on their lumpy bed, with all of my possessions in storage. I am in a vortex of uncertainty, as my daughter finishes her final days of online high school. 

I do have some online classes that I am hoping I can continue to teach, even when I move. However, I have no full-time job, benefits, or certainty of classes from one semester to the next. As the dean of one of the universities where I teach told me, “I guess that’s the life of an adjunct.”  

While I am excited about my potential move to California, anything is possible and it is all wildly uncertain. I am trying now, for the first time in my life, to throw my hands up in the air and to let the universe decide for me.  

The circumstances seem pregnant with possibility. My daughter is applying for scholarships to help with college expenses. I’m writing more. I’m grown to be more dedicated to my health and fitness. I even jogged a bit this morning. Online courses, which is my preferred mode of teaching in the middle of this uncertainty, are more plentiful. I’ve even applied for some full-time, all-online teaching positions. 

But for now, we wait in this moment of uncertainty and transition. 

2020 has taught me to take a leap of faith; to understand that I don’t have the answers today, but they will most certainly unveil themselves with they are ready, when the time is right. 

Instead of using my precious time planning, making vision charts, and detailed plans, I’m instead using that time to prepare, even though I am not certain what it is that I am preparing for.  

I know that, when the time is right, opportunity will arrive, and when it does, I’ll be ready to greet it, whatever it may be.