I have a plan. (Part 1)

I have a plan.

Somewhere in 2008 I slowly started to realise nothing was going according to plan. Maybe at that point I should have had the foresight to see that maybe, just maybe, that meant that I was following the wrong plan. That or maybe I just hadn’t accepted that the right plan was going to get followed regardless. Maybe I should have realised that nothing was just going according to MY idea of the plan.

You see, I did have a plan.

It might not have been fully formed, but I had a plan. Maybe that should have been the indicator, the not fully formed part. This meant that it really was, in every essence, just an idea of a plan. And a plan is an idea. So now I’m living with an idea of an idea while having no idea why I have not enough goals and too many ideas.

I didn’t have the plan. I always had a plan.

I planned on enjoying the year with the sexy girlfriend. I planned on selling out shows in the city I lived in. I planned on implementing everything I’d learned in the years prior to make me a successful independent musician. I planned on selling out the venues without selling out my integrity. And I would not sell out my soul. I planned on finally making my family proud of me. I wasn’t sure what came after that, but hey, sounded like quite the plan at the time.

Nothing went according to plan. And of course not, because that wasn’t a plan. I always had a plan.

The sexy girlfriend became and made me miserable. I did the same. The shows bombed. The hard work made for easy put downs. The family worried. The money got low and I got high. The buzz got dull and my buzz went up. There was never money in my pocket but there was somehow always a pack of cigarettes. There was never a tip in my hand but there was always a beer or a mixed drink, and rarely empty. There was never any phone bill money but there was always a phone number. The successful shows and payouts became lifelines, few and far between. And something always happened. Someone always did something ridiculous. Someone always got selfish. Something was always broken. Something was always miscalculated. Someone always argued. And the difference between the times I was guilty and was the true culprit started to vary more and more.

This was NOT the plan. I always had a plan.

Then there came the great plans. It took breaking up with someone to fall in love with them. That was a great plan. It took needing something from family and friends to contact them. That was another great plan. I started going through these great plans like toilet paper, until they started to hold that value on both sides.

The only thing great about those plans was their unproductiveness. I always had a plan.