Loving so much it hurts

Last night, my fiancé canceled on me.  It happens sometimes.  He found out he has a test Friday and really needed to study for it.  I had planned a night in with him, ordering food and watching more more of Empire.  We both have fallen in love with the show.  I even downloaded the sound track. The music and acting are great.

When David cancels on me, it hurts.  I plan an evening around him.  Being next to him makes me so happy. I get frustrated and am not really sure what to do with myself.  Do I go out and grab drinks at a bar alone?  Do I stay in and watch tv and cook?  Do I go to the gym?

The challenge is that when he calls to talk to me about it, he hears it in my voice too.  It hurts him when I'm hurt.  We both end up hurting each other because we want so badly to please the other.  We are getting to the point where we are moving beyond it, I hope.  Some of this is the challenge or joy of a new relationship.  Some of this is poor time management.

Finally, some of this is my personal rigidity in my own planning.  When I plan something, I schedule prep time, said activity time, and follow up time.  If something in my personal or my work schedule changes, I feel like there is this huge opportunity of time to fill that I haven't planned to fill.  I can always watch television, or go for a run, or read a book.  It's just that none of those, in this case, is as enjoyable as laying on the sofa and watching Empire with David.

In this case, I wrack my brain trying to decide what will fill this opportunity with something close to as joyful, or at least acceptably as fulfilling.  The same thing happens at work or in my life when I have meetings cancelled or dinner with friends, or a gym appointment with my trainer.  I want to immediately plan something to fill that space and time.  I get a great deal of personal satisfaction from the planning and successful execution of that plan.  So much so that I plan just about everything.  For vacations and work, I also plan back up plans in case something falls through.  I map out locations, travel time, costs, hours of operation and have a list of back up fun things to do that take the approximate same amount of time, money, and energy.

This sounds crazy to some people, I realize.  I do plan down time too.  I schedule blocks of time to lay down and watch tv or read a book.  If I get sucked into a book or movie or television show or a conversation with a dear friend, I am flexible enough to mentally move around my rest of the plans for the day to enjoy being in the moment.

So, with David, I just need to start planning better.  I also need to accept that I can't plan everything.  I know he loves me and doesn't want to hurt me.  I also know that by this time next year, we will be living together and I'll see him all the time.