Organizational Queen

I always knew that as a type A person, I am often the one making plans and taking care of the all the details. However, I didn't realize to what extent people expect me to do this until I tried to stop. I have been feeling a little off lately- not my energetic, motivated self. So, for a bit I wanted to take a break from making all the decisions, from being the leader. I just wanted to follow-up along for a bit. Except, it turns out when I am not in charge, things were kinda a mess.

making my detailed plans and sticking to them

I had made tentative plans with my friend for Thursday. I told her to tell me where and when and I'd be there. I didn't follow-up with her or make a back-up plan of my own. And, I never heard from her and sat at home feeling lonely and grumpy.

Friday night I told the BF he had to decide where we were going to dinner. He hemmed and hawed forever. I ended up choosing the restaurant in the end, but he had vacillated for so long that by the time we got there there was no parking and long waiting line.

Saturday I was up at my Mom's on the island. I knew we'd be spending a lot of time in the boat (yeah new outboard!), but I didn't stop at the store on my way up to get boat food. So at 2 pm Saturday (way past my regular lunch time), I was starving, cranky, and trying to pull together a meal for 4 people. We ended up sharing 1 can of tuna on some stale bread.

apparently I need to be the leader. ALL the time

Saturday night, both my Mom and I had a friend visiting for the night. No one would make decision whether to go to the store and get things to cook at home, or weather to take another boat adventure and go to dinner in the boat. We waited so long that the store closed, so boating it was. We tried Five Island first, but it was packed and there was no place to tie up. So then I had to navigate into Cozy Harbor, which is really tricky to get into because there are a lot of submerged ledges. The restaurant was super slow so by the time we finished it was very dark. So I had to deal with both the tricky navigation and the dark on the way home. I was a cranky pants because it was far from the relaxing, lazy evening I wanted.

I don't really know where this is going. Most of the time, I don't mind being the organizing force. I usually prefer to make sure everything is pre-planned and goes the way I want it to. But sometimes, I guess it would be nice if other people would step-up too.

Are you an organizer or a follower? Have you ever tried to get the other people in your life to take a little more responsibility? What happened?