I Have A Problem

I'm a planner. No, make that a plan-a-holic. I planned every detail of how to afford to buy a house. Planned every detail of a wedding single-handedly, with Mike just sort of nodding his head every once in a while. Planned my children and how close together they would be born. I've planned several vacations as well. So it's natural that I'm in charge of our household budget and keeping things humming along relatively smoothly.

Along with all this planning comes mega research, both online and at the library. I read and read till I can't find anything new on the subject. And then I read it again. I take notes, print off interesting tidbits and place them in folders. I have designated spiral notebooks for collecting information. I jot down reminders and new ideas in my daily planner. If there's something I'm planning, you can bet your next pay check that I'm all over it.

I realized tonight, though, that it's sometimes a burden to be this phobic about flying by the seat of your pants. If life throws me a curve ball, I'm like, "Man, didn't see THAT coming, cause it wasn't in my day planner!!!" I know it's good to have a plan in many instances, but there are times I work myself into a tizzy over things that just aren't earth shattering. For instance, we're leaving shortly on a long-awaited trip to Florida (a trip that I've been researching and planning for two years.). During part of this trip, we'll be in Orlando, and of course we're spending a couple days at the Disney parks. Most people would just pick the park and possibly the days they'd like to go to those parks and let 'er rip. Me? Uh, well, I've read numerous Disney guides, perused Disney forums, peppered friends with questions, and have taken to designing The Perfect Tour Plan.

What's a Tour Plan (TP) you ask? This is a plan of attack once you get inside the park.....step 1 - go to this ride, step 2 go to that ride, step 3 see this show, etc. It's designed to help you see the best rides and shows with the least amount of standing around in lines, or worse, standing around asking, "Where do you want to go now?" It sounds worse than it is, like if I can't plan in the spontaneity then it ain't happening. No, I'm not going to be a drill sergeant about the plan, but there is this innate drive in me that requires I have a plan nonetheless. You'd think I'd just take a tour plan from one of the many guides I've read. But no, that's not enough for me. I need to combine several of the tours into one new one because the authors didn't create one that was specific enough for my family, so I need to do better. I need to make it perfect because the trip will be ruined if it's not. I stay up late in the evenings to rework and rework the Magic Kingdom TP. I've created and chucked no less than a dozen tour plans, I kid you not, and I keep on tweaking. I think it won't be done till the night before we leave.....and it'll only be "done" because I've run out of time. I'm quite certain that if I had a lap top, I would take it with me and keep on planning till it was time to drive to the park.

So back to tonight's revelation about this aspect of my personality being burdensome. I'm compulsive about planning things to perfection. No detail can be overlooked. I must do my job as planner of every major event in my life. I'm not sure if it's harder to be like this or if it would be harder on me to just let the chips fall where they may. I'm sure there's some psychological reason I'm like this.....beyond my Type-A-Control-Freakishness.....what issues lurk beneath my surface that are being masked by my relentless pursuit of the perfect plan?