In Real Life: When Best-Laid Plans Go Astray

They were good plans, the ones that have gone astray. With today being the fourth Saturday of the month, this ‘Sturm-und-Drang’ is right in line with the theme of In Real Life. We’d planned to kick off my retirement by taking a lengthy road trip. It was shaping up to be about a month-long, with us touring through several nearby states. But instead, there I was, on a Sunday two weeks ago with a wine glass in hand, canceling the hotel reservations made just a month earlier. Little did I realize that that was just the beginning of things going astray.

We were being proactive with our decision. The first stop was to be in Las Vegas for the weekend. We’d considered just skipping that part and heading straight into Utah since we knew that carousing in casinos might be risking exposure to COVID-19. Mind you, this was before “social distancing” became a regular part of our vernacular. A normal everyday concern rather than just a description of that quirky habit of an introvert friend. With worry about what we would do if one or both of us became ill while we were traveling, our plans were put on hold.

Our daughter had already advised us that she didn’t want to see us in person for a while out of concern for our health. Mind you, both The Husband and I are reasonably healthy without any of the high risks other than age. But only just, as The Husband is 62 and I’ll be 60 later this year. Even so, she doesn’t want the burden of knowing that she might have unknowingly transmitted the virus to us. Fortunately, her job isn’t one where she is interacting with the public at large so her risk of exposure is low. Nonetheless, the company she works for had already informed its employees that they would be WFH as of March 16.

In addition to the considerations regarding our trip, the other topic of concern that weekend had been whether our son’s place of employment would remain open.  He lives with us and his job does require interacting with the public so there was a significant level of exposure risk that troubled us. Fortunately, that place of employment is typically deemed as non-essential and its management decided to close prior to the mandate for such action issued by the governor of my state. What a huge relief that was. It’s been 14 days now since he’s been out and about with no symptoms of the virus (knock on wood), so no lingering concerns on his health. At that point, I was the only one to not be staying at home.

As I shared in Last Week, This Week: Topsy Turvy, March 16-20, an early morning phone call the following Monday told me that I would indeed be joining the WFH ranks. This announcement was met with relief as well as panic. Relief that my risk of exposure was greatly diminished by WFH and relief that I wouldn’t be commuting for 3 to 4 hours a day. Panic, however, that I’d just four weeks until my retirement and there were still many things left to wrap up before I left.  More about the process of getting my team set up for WFH is shared in that last LWTW post.

Besides the now canceled road trip, my best-laid plans included stepping off into retirement with the knowledge that my team was set to go on without me. Doing so while WFH will be a greater challenge but it is what it is. I don’t mind being available afterward to guide and/or answer questions so there is that option if needed. There are paper files that will still my attention sometime in the future when WFH comes to an end.

If you’re thinking that I’m being a bit vague about what I do at my day job and who I work for, you’d be right. My vagueness is for two reasons. First, I always feel like I need to give a lengthy explanation about what I do and I hadn’t wanted to do so. Secondly, my colleagues don’t know about my blog. At least I don’t think that they do since I never told any of them about it. There is no overlap between my job and my blog. For the most part, I’ve wanted to keep my personal life separate from work. My colleagues are a great bunch of people, most of whom I’ve worked with for many, many years. Even so, at the end of the day, we generally go our separate ways.

I’ll be sharing all the exciting (or perhaps better described as yawn-inducing) details about who I worked for and what I did in an upcoming post.  I’d planned to reveal the deep, dark secret of my blog to my colleagues at whatever retirement celebration they would soon be throwing in my honor. With social distancing, there will be no such party in my honor which, after 35 years, has me a little disappointed.

Enough on the feeling sorry for myself, let’s talk about my ensemble. It’s another double-denim look that’s a mix of thrift store finds and retail purchases. The jacket is from Chico’s and it’s a relatively new second-hand purchase.  They’re hard to see in the photos but I think you can just make out that there is some bling on the collar.  Those are rhinestone pins that I think were originally placed on the placket to appear like buttons.  The closure of the jacket is five large snaps but there were only three of the rhinestone pins still in place.  One of the pins had several missing stones so I tossed it and place the remaining two on the collar instead.

The jeans were bought longer ago but also second-hand. I’ve shared before that it’s been many years since I’ve purchased a pair of jeans from a retail store. With so many available in thrift stores, I can probably buy a dozen pairs for what one pair would cost at higher-priced stores. And then there is the embroidery on these beauties that I could not resist. The booties were bought new but who doesn’t need blue suede footwear in their wardrobe? My top is a lightweight sweater that’s perfect for layering and was also bought new. All-in-all, this would have been a great outfit for our road trip.

As of the other best-laid plans I’ve got, this post is the eighth one I’ve published this month. You could almost say that I’m on a roll since I hadn’t published any in February and only two in January. I’ve also been working on a spruce up of the design format of this blog that will be revealed shortly. The editorial plans I’d made a few weeks ago are out the window since our trip has been canceled postposed and new planning is in the works. Not complaining, just adapting. Have any of your best-laid plans gone astray lately?

Be well and let’s connect! Subscribe, tweet, follow, friend, love, pin … all options are available and waiting for you. I look forward to hearing from you.

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