What Do Parties, Ikea and New York Have In Common?

When a colleague asked me if I was going anywhere nice on my week off, I replied quite honestly that I "might go to New York".  Now this wasn’t a statement that was designed to raise eyebrows, nor to suggest that I was the type of girl who regularly jetted off on a whim, it’s just that might is the operative word.  It suggests that I might also, not be going, and that’s because I will be travelling on a staff travel allocation.

Having been raised in a household where both your parents work for a large airline, you get used to never having a confirmed seat.  Staff travel gives you some whopping discounts, but also means you might be travelling First Class, Cattle Class, on a crew jump seat (not comfortable for a seven hour flight trust me!) or you just might not get on the flight at all.  It’s a game of roulette, and you just have to hope that there’s room for you, because you are completely at the back of the queue, behind all of the customers who are paying full price for their seats.

As it is, at the moment the flight to New York looks pretty good, so we’ll depart on Friday to return Sunday.  Some people may ask what's the point of going all that way, just for dinner and a bit of shopping in the morning?  This begs the question...well why wouldn’t you?  If you had a friend that could get you a flight to New York, for the same price as two tanks of diesel – wouldn’t you snap their hand off?  We live in a small world, where the opportunities are endless.  I only really realised this recently. 

I used to be a planner.  I planned everything.  A holiday would be booked a year in advance, a trip to Ikea would be planned for a bank holiday weekend, where I had time to shop and then assemble my purchases (in all fairness, when it comes to flat pack furniture I still think it’s wise to plan a little time for assembly given that I actually need it to at least resemble the item I’ve bought!).  I planned for parties that I’d been invited to weeks in advance, and much to my colleague’s amusement, my plan for the week's meals would be made on a Monday when I placed the order for my online grocery shopping! 

Nowadays...well I’ve become much more relaxed. All I need is an hour’s notice for a night out, I decide what I want to eat at about 6pm and nip into Asda to pick up the required ingredients.  I make decisions to fly to New York a week before I plan to do it, and last night I decided to buy a sofa from Ikea, today I checked it’s availability on-line, and drove to pick it up.  It’s now sat fully assembled in the lounge looking very smart.

Planning is fine, but being a planner by nature can hold you back. Caution for caution’s sake is unnecessary and puts a barrier between you and the things you want to do.  I’m slowly but surely starting to learn to live by the seat of my pants, and it feels good.  I’m living for the minute, because as a single thirty year old, I’m young enough to enjoy the thrill of being selfish, and mature enough to deal with the consequences should my lack of forward planning cause things to go awry.  Unfortunately, I’m still disorganised enough to never remember where I’ve put my passport, so I do have one plan for the next few days, and that’s to turn the house upside down until I find it!