Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans

"If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is a law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality." Dan Millman from The Way of the Peaceful Warrior (by way of the Interlude Thought of the Day. I have such a hard time when things don't follow the script in my head. And boy howdy, nothing about Vivian's birth (or heck, most of my pregnancy) followed the Grand Plan I had in mind. I didn't plan to be induced. I didn't plan to have a C-section after a full day of labor and an hour and a half of fruitless pushing. I certainly didn't plan on my intestines quitting on me, or being in the hospital for 2 weeks while poor M had to be Mr. Dad and Wife Support and everything else super-human he could be. God, the Universe, whatever, had other plans for us. Plans involving a tiny little amazing person we're still getting to know, and will be for the rest of our lives. Plans that showed me, yet again, just how fragile life is...how tenuous my reliance on my body to just keep right on chugging without much attention from me... how miraculous and how f-ing WEIRD biology can be. I learned, AGAIN, that every moment is a gift. That I am not "above" the vulnerability, occasional (often frequent) grossness and downright animal nature of my body. That self-sufficiency is a complete farce, and I need all the help I can get just to make it from moment to moment. The hardest thing is letting go of the cute little plan I have in my head, and letting The Plan unfold as it will. I know that I am not promised that everything will work out the way I want it to. It might not even make sense, not for years and years. My job is to stop trying to make sense of life, stop trying to force it into the narrow little box I have set aside. Just let it be what it is, and enjoy the ride. So far, my 3 week old baby is much better at this than I am. I'm forever relearning humility.