Do you have a seven year plan?

Over lunch the other day, a friend asked me that very question, "What do you want to be doing in seven years?" The first thought that came to my mind was, "Not everybody's laundry."

"No, really, what do you want to be doing?"

Honestly I didn't know. My life runs day to day, with drop off and pick up schedules, homework, laundry, housework, cooking. And week to week at best with the planning and keeping of doctor's appointments, playdates, Girl Scout meetings, dance, music lessons, food shopping, and religious ed.

A year ago I was climbing my ladder of journalistic success; but then the rungs ran out. Had my book copy edited with visions of finishing it; but it sits untouched filed away on a hard drive. Don't I want to finish it? Yes, but instead I wallow in the excuse I need blocks of time to think, and not six minutes here, 10 minutes there. And I wonder why; for it was written with a minute here, and three over there. I would awaken early and shuffle off to bed late, living and breathing, standing along side Sarah Cahill. Now she is a distant cousin I would love to reconnect with. Someday.

I used to be in the schools taking pictures, when I wasn't playing the role as Jane the Journalist, or Wilma the writer. Now I go when they ask if I can photograph an event. And I do, and it's fun.

But where do I see myself in seven years?

I truly envy those people, men and women alike, who have a plan and execute to it. Like the archeologist who is first and foremost at 70, who only started studying at 50. What do I want to do?

I wasn't always so unsure, so undirected. When I was young I was going to be a world class drug designer. With me on the hunt, concocting the latest and greatest suicide substrate, Cancer was going to be a blip in the past. And before that I glimpsed how the coupling factor complex choreographed proton flow. Hours of sitting in a little dark room, running experiment after experiment, all for filling in one fantastic graph. It was beautiful and a gift to have seen it for myself.

Life takes people down many roads, bridging options and crossing lanes of wonder and surprise. And I wonder where I am heading, but right now it's time to make the lunches and wake the angels who will be eating them.