When plans fall through it can be hard to see the other side of the equation. Especially when the plans are ones for which you’ve had your heart set on seeing through to the end. But alas, plans do occasionally do just that. Because, after all, life happens.
In my case, it was the plans for staying at my nursing school buddy’s home for marathon weekend which fell through. I had to remind myself that I knew from the get-go that her daughter’s out-of-state basketball tournament might be an issue. Why wouldn’t she go? Because of me? I guess I wanted to believe that there would be other reasons why she would need to stay in the Boston area. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
I kept looking for the follow up email that said “April Fool’s” but I knew I wasn’t coming. My friend is just not like that. Still, I cannot fathom how we could go wrong in the communication here. I can’t dwell on it. It wasn’t all her fault; I am partly to blame as well.
It was hard for me not to take on the victim mentality. I was fighting the urge to curl up in a ball and murmur “why, oh why me?” It would do me no good. I had to get a grip.
Certainly, I’m not the only one to encounter things not going as-planned. The Big Sur International Marathon organizers had to come up with a Plan B when a significant portion of Highway 1 fell into the Pacific Ocean last month. The decision to change course and have many of the events run an out-and-back course instead of the planned point-to-point was communicated to registrants 2 short days after the fall. I can only guess what sort of murmuring must have been going on in the race director’s mind (if not out loud) in those short 48 hours. “Why, oh why…”