Plan Your Work ... Work Your Plan

I don't have many friends. I know a lot of people and I enjoy the company of many people, but there are few people whom I call true friends. But in college, I met three of my best friends. If you knew us individually, you could never imagine any of us being friends, let alone best friends, but sometimes it is the differences that we share that make the strongest of friendships. So - after twenty years, Julie, Kim and Azeen are three of the most beautiful women I know and who I have the privilege of calling best friends. I thought that was enough - and then my Emme was born. And I've spent the past four years wondering if she and I will ever become best friends? I worry about this because she seems so very different from me. She is my free spirit. She is my risk taker. She has her own courage and self-confidence. She is Emme. I am the planner. I am the list maker. I need order in my life while she thrives on the chaos that she creates. I knew Kim and I would be friends in college - after I met her dad. He left our dorm room saying "plan your work, work you plan". A year later, he wrote the same saying on the red paper which we had adorned our dorm room walls with ... which we later learned was a fire hazard and almost got us evicted. I loved that saying and I loved the fact that one of my roommates had a Dad who knew the importance of a plan. Of course, I thought Kim would be a planner, too.

But she wasn't ... at least, she seemingly wasn't a planner. She was a free spirit. She got me to do things I never thought I'd do. She had a lust for life that made you want to breathe it all in and enjoy the moment. She has experienced so much in her life - because I thought - she wasn't the planner, but would just take things as they came. Kim is now getting married in April. I receive her inviation the other day and was in awe of its simple elegance. In fact, I've been impressed with everythign she's done for her wedding. The details she has honed in on - the compassion she shared with me when I had to decline being a bridesmaid - everything seems so very well planned. It dawned on me then that Kim was ... is ... always has been a planner. She's planned her work and worked her plan ... she just didn't need a list or a set order of things. She had confidence in who she is to know she'd get done what needed to get done and along the way - she'd have fun and make a memory.

Yesterday, as we were leaving her preschool, my Emme announced she had a plan. A life plan. I was so shocked I stopped in my tracks as we walked to our van. "You, Emme Bear? Have a Plan?" "Yes, Mama ... a life plan". Hmmm ... interesting ... I"m not even sure I have a life plan - me the planner - without a life plan - and yet my free spirit, my creative energy has a plan. "So - what's your plan?" "Well, my plan is this ... I go to Kindergarten next year, then I'll do second grade, then high school. And when I'm 17 I'm going to buy some makeup. That's my plan". "Emme - that's a pretty good plan. You know when you're 16 you'll learn to drive". Emme looked at me after I said this as she was getting in the van. She didn't say a word. As I drove, I glanced in my rearview mirror as I often do - gazing at my kids. Emme sat pensive, looking out the window. As I often did, I tried to think about what might be going on in her head. I wondered what made her so pensive. We got home and Emme sat in her seat a bit longer. "Mama - I had to change my plan." "That's okay Em, you can change plans" - "Well, you see, now that I can drive, I think I'll need to buy myself a van with a big TV in it so that I can have somethign to do while I drive myself to WalMart to get makeup. So my plan changed a little.... "

At that moment, I realized that my Emme was not that different from me. I was always changing my plans - just a little - just enough - and more importantly, she was a lot like Kim. She has an amazing strength and beauty, like all my best friends, that make the differences we share the very things that make us who we are - as individuals and together. My Emme Bear, will plan her work, and work her plan ... and along the way, she'll make some memories .... and if I am lucky, I'll be a friend in many of them.