Do I have one? Nope

Have I ever had one? Nope

You should take advice from people who have experience, they say. I don’t have experience with back-up plans, but I have some with NOT having one and it’s from that perspective I’m writing today…unfortunately.

I am forcing myself into “down” time since I am having injury concerns. I don’t like calling them injuries because nothing specific happened, but they are problems. Both my hip and my heel (same side too ha ha on me) have been bothering me for a couple of weeks. The heel is my biggest concern, though, as it’s not in the location I’ve had plantar fasciitis before and therefore may be another stress fracture – even though it occurred at a weird time. I had already cut down on my walking when it started. Sigh….. So, since I have a very big year coming, I figured I better let them both heel now.

I’m sure most of the people reading this will already be feeling my anxiety – “oh no, what do I do now? I’ll go crazy if I can’t walk.” And yes, that is happening. I don’t have a back-up plan.

However, fortuitously, this has happened during November which is always NANOWRIMO – National Novel Writing Month. And I have participated in this almost every year since 2004. Although not writing a novel, I had planned to get my next book out this month – it’s kind of a sequel to “It’s Not About the Miles”. I use the structure and discipline of the NANOWRIMO program for my writing. Last year I got 70,000 words of “It’s Not About the Miles” done in November and I intend to write this book entirely this month.

So, I have a built-in back-up plan for November. Not sure what to do if I need more time than that.

It has made me realize, though, that at my age (or any age), I need to develop more interests to fill a day for the time when, God forbid, I can’t walk any more. I’ll have to explore that more.

You’d think I would have learned about having a back-up plan when I was younger. I had wanted to be a doctor since I was 4 and that’s all my sights were ever set upon. Well, you can imagine my surprise and total devastation when I didn’t get into medical school on the first TWO attempts. I had to get a job but had no skills, no training, no idea of what to do….So, I just floundered around, and the Universe took care of me, but I should have had a plan. Especially since my “plan” of becoming a neurosurgeon was also derailed at about the same time – when I developed epilepsy. I had no idea of what I wanted to do instead of neurosurgery, so I had no plan.

It’s important to ask ourselves if we have back-up plans for many aspects of our life. And it helps to ask others too because they may need help in the future (or perhaps now) and might be too proud to ask. No one saw the pandemic coming. And no one saw the consequences either – inflation and cost of living skyrocketed. Many folks are in need of help now but don’t feel they can ask for help. Maybe you know what was going on with them and can provide help without them having to ask. Think of all the good you could do! That’s a back-up plan of sorts.

Take some time – we are too darn busy anyway – to figure out your back-up plans. I bet people in Florida know what a back-up plan is with all the hurricanes they endure.

Sigh..back to writing with my foot elevated….have a great day.