The Best Laid Plans

Here I am at the hair salon in the middle of the day like I don’t have to work for a living, but it’s the only time I could get an appointment before my stylist goes out on maternity leave so you take what you can get. NOT that I am a last minute planner, I am very predictable because I AM a planner. My appointment was scheduled for an evening next week, at exactly the seven week mark, like always. Scheduled before I left the salon the last time.

But then, as happens, someone who is not a planner throws a wrench into my plans with a last minute requirement for me that messes up my plans. I’ll be in a different state next week instead, so like I said, here I am at the hair salon in the middle of a workday. My stylist is running ten minutes behind which is annoying, but I’m dealing with it by continuing the facade that I am a lady of leisure.

Along with messing up my hair schedule, I also have to miss another violin lesson next week. I planned to start lessons during a time when I was not “supposed” to have to travel. (HAHA!)

“Nichole,” my instructor said this week, “you get so nervous when you play in front of me. You know this is my job, right? And that I listen to people play at all levels all day every day?”

It’s true, I do get nervous. She gives me an assignment for the week and I practice and practice and practice and then when she says, “Ok, let me hear it” I start sweating. I purposely wear short sleeved shirts and often a ponytail to keep from becoming a nervous, sweaty, slob. Life is all about facing your fears, right?

“I wish you could hear some of my other students,” she added, “and hear how badly they play, it would make you feel better.”

I’m not sure if it WOULD actually make me feel better because those students are probably five years old, but I tried to take it for the compliment it was intended to be (while mopping the sweat from my brow). There is someone in the world I play better than, woohoo!

I’m pretty sure Owen, who has his lesson right after mine and is eight years old, smirks at me when I exit the lesson room. I’m still playing version six of “twinkle, twinkle” and he’s probably been playing since he was five and is playing Vivaldi by now but WHATEVER OWEN, I’M COMING FOR YOU! (In three to five years, roughly…lol)

On the bright side, missing another lesson gives me a chance to double practice all my homework for the week. (I hope Owen misses me!)

I learned, as I became older and wiser that it is not so much that I am a planner and more that I hate surprises and do not transition well. I was one of those kids who needed a ten minute warning that it was time to go in order to allow time for transition. (I don’t think my parents knew that, though) I am planful (A new word I made up) because I want to know what is going on and what to expect. For this reason, when someone throws last minute plans at me, if there is an opt out option that’s the route I’m taking.

But there’s not always an opt out. ERGO here I am at the hair salon in the middle of the day. “The best laid plans,” as they say. (Of mice and men…)

(And where the hell is my stylist?!?)