There is a scene in Friends, specifically Season 5 Episode 16, The One with the Cop, where Ross is trying to get a couch up the stairs. He draws a diagram. He has arrows and angles. He has a clear plan. He assigns roles. Everyone is in place. And surprise, surprise, it does not work.
He ends up red-faced and yelling PIVOT at the top of his lungs over and over again while the couch wedges itself into the stairwell, and his friends wonder why they are even trying to help him anyway. Ross stands by with all the shattered optimism of another plan that didn’t pan out.
I think about that episode a lot because I am Ross with the plans.
I am the queen of the best laid plans and as Of Mice and Men so delightfully reminds us, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Often honestly feels generous. Let me take you back.
We tried to get pregnant for four years. Four years of tracking apps and appointments, negative pregnancy tests, and lots of wishful thinking. Four years of making plans and watching them not work out. We had the timeline and the hope. And then, eventually, finally, the plan worked. But not before we learned that control is mostly something we do not possess.
With our second daughter, who was the most imperfectly perfect surprise, I had carefully orchestrated an extended maternity leave. I was going to soak it in. Be present. Enjoy every snuggle without the frantic countdown to returning to work.
The pandemic hit. Pivot.
Instead of sweet coffee-shop mornings and library story time, I pivoted into isolation, masks, and a lifetime supply of hand sanitizer while I tried to understand what was happening to the world in between feedings and sleepless nights with a newborn.
We planned a Florida vacation. Covid outbreak. Pivot.
My husband’s work was deemed essential, and it became clear this wasn’t going away any time soon. I extended my maternity leave again and became a temporary stay-at-home mom. It wasn’t the original plan, but we rolled with it. Then the stay-at-home mom part turned into work from home mom when I found a job working from home. First Steps therapy schedules and my husband’s work hours and travel schedule made the possibility of going back to the classroom seem impossible. Temporary turned into 4 ½ years of working full-time with eight or fewer hours of child care per week. I worked in the cracks. Early mornings. Nap times. Setting up a movie so I could take an important meeting. Late nights. I answered phone calls while stirring mac and cheese. I responded to emails when waking up for overnight feedings. I answered chat messages while dealing with toddler meltdowns. I build a career out of fragments of time. I desperately wanted to return to the classroom, but I couldn’t see how it would work.
Again. Pivot.
Somewhere in there, I became the default parent. The keeper of the school forms and doctor appointments, sports schedules, and the family budget, the dog’s vaccine records, and the mental load of literally everything. I have a truly supportive husband. This is not a Steve problem. This is a world-shifting-under-our-feet problem. Before the pandemic, this was not what we envisioned, nor was it our dynamic. We had a plan that made sense. And then the couch got stuck in the stairwell.
Pivot.
We got back to normalcy over the last couple of years. The kids started school. I went back to the classroom. My husband found a job where he wasn’t gone Monday to Friday. Now, he handles drop off most days, and I do pick up. We alternate who takes the kids’ sick days and who takes them to sports practices. We both handle doctor and dentist appointments, and he even shouldered the coordination of our kitchen renovation last fall. There is balance.
But here we are again…pivoting.
Spring break to New York City. Broadway lights. Central Park. The Statue of Liberty. Times Square. The American Girl Store. We have all been counting down. We booked it. We planned it. I even had a spreadsheet.
Now, with the heightened terror alerts in response to Iran, my stomach is in knots. I do not feel safe taking our family to New York right now. Maybe it is overly cautious. Maybe it is motherhood. Maybe it is the trauma of watching 9/11 on live television. Maybe it is just anxiety. But once the seed of that anxiety is planted, it doesn’t disappear just because the flights are non-refundable. So here I sit staring at the couch in the stairwell again.
With everything going on in the world, I should just be grateful my family is safe and healthy and that this is a decision we get to make. This is absolutely a first-world problem. While I’m over here rearranging spring break plans, there are military families who live in a constant state of pivot, loving someone whose safety is never guaranteed. There are families all across the world who are forced to pivot in the most unimaginable ways. Their plans are not shattered by inconvenience, but merely a means of survival. This pivot can be small in the big scheme of things, but also still feel like a massive disappointment.
It is exhausting to constantly be the one who sees the risk, absorbs the information, recalculates, cancels the reservations, explains it to disappointed kids, and then builds a new magical memory out of thin air. It is exhausting to be the one responsible for scanning the horizon for potential catastrophe while never forgetting to pack the snacks.
I’m tired of pivoting. Tired of doing everything right. Tired of making the plans. Tired of getting the team in place. Tired of yelling PIVOT while the couch, and the whole world for that matter, does what it wants anyway.
The only reassurance I have is that every time the plan has fallen apart, something else has taken its place. Not what I pictured or planned, but something. We got our babies. We survived the pandemic relatively unscathed. We built resilience in our kids. We learned how to work in the chaos. We found joy in nature, basement playrooms, and local road trips when the big trips fell through.
Maybe I’m still Ross. I am tired of pivoting. But apparently, I am also very, very good at it, so I guess it is back to the drawing board I go.
