I have been a planner for the last 20 or so years out of anxiety and life management necessity, although I have always appreciated a good, organic, ‘go with it’, ‘let’s see what happens,’ ‘live in the moment’ kinda perspective. My appreciation for both ways of being is probably why I plan things with friends and then cancel at the last moment. On Wednesday it seems like drinks on Friday evening with friends is an amazingly fun idea, but now that it’s Friday and I have barely gotten through the week with my sanity intact, getting out of my sweatpants, putting on make up, brushing my hair to get together with adults to have adult conversations and drink wine seems like a mountain too high to climb. Or we have our weekly playgroup meet up after school at Jenni’s house, but Masan’s friend from school drops by, so we bail on playgroup instead of kicking out the drop-in friend. This last minute change of plans probably also stems from my family of origin’s way of doing things. Gram often tried to get out of hosting us for visit at the last moment to assuage her anxiety about having guests (although she was an amazing hostess). My mom would more often than not question or change plans at the last moment depending on what new information came up or how her mood struck her. Visits were sometimes cancelled or changed because of rain or cold weather. So despite my knowledge of all this, it’s a pattern that I often repeat, although I hate that I do it.

I married a fantastic, loving, kind man who, although very successful at work and in life, is not a planner. And this poor, logic-driven decision-making guy has to live with this sometimes flakey, often Type A planner who makes decisions based on how to ward off anxiety. Dan is a put-out-fires kind of guy. I don’t think he realizes that at least some of those fires are preventable with a smidgeon of planning, but regardless, his strategy works for him. However, his way often involves meltdowns (his, mine and sometimes the children’s) and copious amounts of the f-word when time has run out and what is now front and center hasn’t gotten done. Because we are married, we often have to co-mange projects—like the daily lives of our kids or how to get ready for an overseas move. Our opposite strategies for handling life—I did my high school projects the day they were assigned, and he did them in the bathroom right before class on the day they were due—often cause conflict.

For example, when I bring up one of my move checklist items, like needing to get at least 8 new suitcases for the move, to Dan and it’s not a priority for him, he doesn’t give it any attention and makes me feel as though it’s not important, and because he often knows the most logical way to do something I defer to him, and skip that checklist item believing that it’s not important. If I go ahead and take care of the checklist item myself, and he thinks I haven’t done it the way that he thinks it should have been done (like I spend too much money on the aforementioned suitcases), we usually get in an argument. So to prevent fights and promote harmony, I have tried to be very Type B about this whole move and managing the kids lives these days. I am letting him take the lead. And this strategy has worked fairly well—until now. Last week I barely worked on the move unless something came up that Dan asked me to do. Instead, I did work for clients, took yoga and cardio classes at the Y with Mia in child watch where she only screamed for mama for 10 minutes this time, and on Friday worked for 8 hours on graphics for posters for Evie’s birthday party (reliving my higher ed workshop flier-making days). And yesterday we all went to Sesame Place for the whole day with friends during which time I didn’t even think about all the stuff we still have to do for the move.

But this morning, s–t hit the fan. The baby had been up all night screaming from possible Elmo-withdrawal, but definitely a cold. All night. Dan, the saint he is, handled the baby. Then this morning when we woke up for the day at 9:15 am (the big girls had been playing their iPads for at least 3 hours in their room by this point. Masan, the one who aims to please, woke us up about 4 times to tell us they were playing their iPads so that they didn’t wake us up) Dan immediately started freaking out because he just that second realized that Masan is supposed to be in a procession at church before her CCD class. And church starts in 40 minutes. And everyone is in pi’s, and it’s a 20 minute walk to church—we can’t drive because Court Street is blocked off to traffic for some sort of street fair. Although the kitchen calendar has been hung up for the sole purpose of keeping us all on the same page when it comes to what’s going on in the life of the family, this is the first I am hearing about this procession (Dan is in charge of CCD stuff). Last week we showed up for class when class wasn’t happening because of public school spring break. We would have known this if we had had the CCD calendar, but again, Dan is in charge of CCD and he is not a planner (I do love my husband so much!). So now he is walking around in circles, panicking, upset about how Masan is going to feel about missing the procession (which is really sweet, but she is oblivious to it because he never mentioned it to her either), tearing through drawers looking for the CCD calendar so that we can find out if we have class today, and not able to process anything logically. So now I become the logical one who cleans up the mess by getting in touch with the teacher, talking to Masan, and helping Dan  manage his panic. But now that we are in a heightened state of stress, and my poor husband hasn’t gotten any REM sleep, more and more things we need to get done in the next 4 weeks come up, and it snowballs from here. He has to get to the office RIGHT THIS MINUTE to print out the visa applications he was given on Friday for our appointment on Monday morning. And there are 5 applications—one for each of us. And each one is 80 pages. And we need to inventory everything we are taking on the plane, storing in Brooklyn, and air shipping to India for our move. And we need to buy 8 suitcases and decide what may have to be sea shipped. And at this moment we realize that Masan doesn’t have her backpack to do her homework because she left it at the school playground on Friday, and I forgot to remind her because the baby had been knocked over by a kid and was bleeding from her mouth. And we just now realized that she didn’t have her backpack because I was trying to not be so controlling and let her do her homework when she decided she wanted to do it. (It’s come up that I am making her anxious by the focus I put on homework). I love my husband, but I think that it’s time Type A Sharon stepped back in.

P.S. As I write this Dan calls to tell me that the visa application coordinator never sent his visa application to him with the rest of the applications for the family. And it’s the middle of the night in India, where she is located, and he needs it today for us to print out, get notarized and taken to the consulate tomorrow morning. AHHHHHHH!