That was the plan

Sometimes I wonder if I need to join Planning Anonymous.

“My name is Alana and I’m a plan-a-holic …”

My obsession with planning drove my ex CRAZY.

I’d go for walks at the crack of dawn each morning, get home, wake him up and bombard him with ideas for our future.

He’s not a morning person.

I once made him go to a weekend-long “how to open your own B&B” conference. He would rather have his fingernails pulled out than open his own B&B and clean all those toilets.

One of the many nails in my marriage coffin was collecting him from the hospital after day surgery and spending the whole trip home pondering what sort of swimming pool we should get in the backyard.

Geez he was dirty about that.

Admittedly, I spent MONTHS during the last few years of our marriage musing on swimming pools. My ex had zip, zero, nada interest in getting a swimming pool. He was particularly disinterested after having very painful day surgery.

I, on the other hand, had decided happiness was to be found in a swimming pool (retrospectively I can see it was because it wasn’t to be found in my marriage).

There were bonuses to my obsessive planning – we always got early bird deals on travel because I booked our holidays a year in advance. I made some very astute property purchases and carried out some very lucrative mini renovations without the need for expensive things like draftsmen.

My ex also noted to DD last weekend – as they were not-awkward-at-all shooting the breeze – that I’ve organised some mighty fine children’s parties over the years.

Those skills would have come in handy for my ex’s 50th birthday celebration this weekend, which still didn’t have a venue last week and is hence running low on numbers.

But overall, I think he enjoys being freed from my intense ways.

I am slightly less obsessive these days, but I’ve somehow managed to hook up with a bloke who dislikes planning even more than my husband.

DD makes most decisions around an hour before enacting them, if not on the spur of the moment. He’s perturbed that other people like a bit more notice than that … especially anxious people like me.

It freaks me out not knowing what I’m doing a week from Tuesday. I NEED to know.

I can’t even converse with my dining companions at a restaurant until the food has been ordered because there are too many unknowns in the room.

Hopefully DD won’t decide he’d prefer being freed from my intense ways.

At least I don’t want my own B&B any more.

Are you a planner?

Song of the day: INXS “Don’t change”