No, I don't have a plan.

I know who I am, I just don't know what I'll be doing in 5 years.

The future feels like this intangible thing that’s hidden behind a wall of fluff, like the kind that forgotten scarves create. I can’t see it very clearly as I don’t have the same connection to the future as I do with the present. I remind myself to blink, when people ask what my future plans are, lest the blankness in my eyes cause them any confusion. It feels like the most impossible of tasks to break down my future into times, dates, places and people. As if I should know what I want to do and achieve in five, ten or fifteen years. It feels so arbitrary to reduce one’s aliveness down to something as bland as a number.

All I know is that I have a future, I can feel it even if I can’t see it, it has a calmness and whole body smile to it that feels like seeing someone you love waiting for you at the airport. In a totally non-narcissistic way, I know my future will be absolutely delicious because I, Giselle, will be in it. The other superfluous details of what I’ll be doing, where I’ll be doing it, and how and with whom I’ll be doing it, aren’t very interesting to me.

I wasn’t always this way. I spent some periods of my life trying to escape the painful moments and memories of the present by visualising the potential eradication of pain I hoped would be in the future. Days spent thinking about what my future self would wear in 10 years time. Dreaming up future lovers who would hold my hand while I slept. Imagining myself walking through cities that were unfamiliar to the me that dreamed of them. I wanted more from life and I believed that the only way I could get it was through time-travelling.

Then, it stopped. There’s a space for visualisation and thinking of what’s next, but on some level, where we are now, is where we once yearned to be, so we must be in it. I chose to be in it. Fully. I prioritised the life that began and ended in the now. Existing from the morning eyes that flutter to the sound of an alarm, and close down whilst snuggling into an indecently oversized panda stuffed toy. A life dedicated to living one moment at a time, paying homage to all that I am privileged enough to witness and immerse myself in on a daily basis. The choice to savour all that is. Releasing the idea that the everyday is mundane, when the mundane is life itself in all its beauty, if we choose to see it as such.

Alongside this romancing of what’s now instead of next, I began to understand what has been long philosophised about; what it means to truly know yourself. Not only to know yourself, but to find love in the self that you have endeavoured to know. It was the only certainty I had, that I knew who I was, I knew that I would grow and evolve into so many versions of myself, that all I knew was that I would be tethered to myself. Being the constant in a tornado-like world of flux. Allowing myself to be who I am but to let who I am be a moving yacht on the open seas of my existence. Ever moving, travelling forward, taking in all that surrounds me.

I fell so deeply in love with the present moment, that it felt weird waiting for anything I had not yet met, when I was captivated by all that exists in the here and now.

As I know who I am, and each day I still learn more of who I am, I know what I want from life. I know how I want the texture, substance and taste of my life to feel. All curved edges, soft skin and drippy candle wax, a life layered in scented oils, petals and cardamom, spiced things, soothing things, songs with strings, silks that my fingers can glide down, hips circling to it all. I know how I want life to romance and seduce me. I know the life I came here to live, the kind of people I want nestled in it, the places I want to linger in, the creativity I want to leak out of me for the world to soak up. I don’t know anything beyond that. I don’t know the exact shapes of it.

I know I will always write, but I don’t know what mediums that writing will take on. I could write more books. I could write music. Maybe a script or screenplay. Perhaps a children’s book or a memoir. Potentially a psychological thriller, I enjoy those. Maybe a column in a magazine. I could teach writing. Read to children who have never been read to. I don’t know, and does it even matter? Maybe I’m just flighty. I don’t know. All I know is that writing will remain with me until my last earthly breath, must I know anything more than that? Can I let my knowing of who I am and intrigue into who I will be, determine the rest of the details?

When asked about future plans, I often say to people, “I don’t know what kind of woman I’ll be at that time in my life.” When you’re devoted to a life of introspection, curiosity, healing, growth, spirituality and inner work; there are no fixed points, not many certainties. I go with what to do, based on who I am. I’ll do a meditation and then be called to rewrite something. I’ll figure something out in therapy that changes the very fabric of my life. I’ll pull some cards or vent in my journal and know I have to create a new offering. Curiosity can cause confusion, but it will always cause truth, if we are willing to let go of the comfort that comes from not being open to change.

As Kim Cattrall famously said, “I don't want to be in a situation for even an hour where I'm not enjoying myself.” I’m self-employed, I don’t have any children, I can do what I want, so if I’m not enjoying something, I ain’t doing it. What I might enjoy today, might be something I won’t enjoy in 3 years time and I have the luxury of pivoting. I’m prepared for the sacrifices and discomfort that might arise as a result of me choosing myself. I don’t crave certainty in the future, I don’t need to know because we will never know, as the future isn’t here yet, so it is merely false comfort.

There are many places on this marvellous planet that I could call home. New York City spends plenty of time hanging out between most of my thoughts. Do I want to live there again? Yes. Do I know when or how? Nope. If it never happens, would I have any regrets? Probably not. The version of me that’s here right now, is loving living in London, so I don’t have any urgency to leave. I could live in Mallorca and spend my days writing under palm trees and strawberry skies, with saltwater-crusted feet going in search of tapas. I’ve always felt that there’s a life for me in Canada, even though I’ve not been yet. What I do know is that I refuse to stay in my hometown until the end of my days, but my hometown is London, also known as one of the greatest cities in the world and one of my first loves, so I mean obviously, I’ll be fine if I did.

The version of me, writing this in 2024 doesn’t want to have kids, so there’s no fertility timeline keeping me in goal-setting mode. Buying a home was never on the top of my agenda. I have endless mood boards of interiors but they could be 10 different homes, in 10 different places. A rented abode to the downright palatial. When I was single, I didn’t treat it like a waiting room, until someone saved me. I had the time of my life. I didn’t have a future planned in my mind with a man, with that being the only life I could imagine. I have never once asked anyone in a relationship, “where is this going?” because all I ever know is that I’m here with you today and committed to as many tomorrow’s together as our hearts benefit from partaking in. Beyond that, who knows? We’ll see when we get there. Love for me is being so beholden to the beauty of the present moment together, that a future together feels lovely but not worth dwelling on for too long, if it causes the unimaginable joy of each others presence to leave for even a second.

I have a list of ideas and projects that I would love to do in this lifetime, I don’t know when I’ll do them, I just know and trust that if they feel juicy and aligned then I’ll do them. But, will I actually do them if I don’t have a plan, I hear you ask?

Well, one school of thought, and a very popular one at that says that you can’t make things happen unless you have a plan. You need to have a goal, they say, especially on podcasts where there’s always a 6 step guide to success. Things don’t happen otherwise, right? I don’t know about that, but there are two things I live by when it comes to this stuff:

1. Non-attachment

2. Sacral responses

I’ve been practicing non-attachment for a while, which is often misinterpreted as not caring or noncommittal nonchalance. For me, it’s the opposite. When I’m in something, I am in it, ten toes down, but with an awareness that if it goes, it goes, if it’s not for me, it’s not for me, if I change my mind, I change it. I am simply honouring the fleetingness of existence, where I too am the bird flying from roof to windowsill, the ant getting squashed under someone’s Adidas Sambas and the caterpillar metamorphosing. I live in the foundation of who I am and outside of who I am, I allow some things to be fixed and others to be transient. I love things, find pleasure in endless things, but I’m not attached to very much.

I show up for things wholeheartedly with the recognition that they might leave or change form, and if they do I will allow any grief to shower me, with the knowing that I will be okay. I will find my healing. I have unending faith in that. I know the felt sense of the future I want to have, and they are a warming broth of values, emotions and sensation. They aren’t attached to fixed things. I know I will have love in my life, I have a pretty good idea of who the people are that this love might come from. I can guesstimate this based on who I love now, and who I am committed to continuing to love, but I have no idea of the love that will come into my life, that is currently floating somewhere waiting to land.

I wasn't expecting each friend to come into my life and love me so deeply. I wasn’t expecting each lover to collide into me. We never know what shape love will take or who it will come from, we can only know that it is love that we desire, and be granular about the type of love we know we deserve. Isn’t it exciting to not know who it might come from and when?

The sacral response idea came from Human Design, which still doesn’t make that much sense to me, but whatever. I’m a manifesting generator, and for my type, I usually work best when I have multiple projects on at a time, because I have so many interests and passions. It’s also a good idea for me to decide on where best to spend my energy by being fully engaged in life and waiting to see what lights me up and gives me a sacral response. That embodied feeling of pure stomach-focused excitement that’s all tingles and truth, which lets me know what to do next and which goals to go towards. I see no point in arbitrarily making plans of things unless I first feel into them, and honestly I just don’t know when that feeling will come. I can’t rush these things.

Right now, I have ideas awaiting execution. Waiting for my sacral to decide which to go with first. My body always knows. Most of the times I’ve relied on my mind to tell me what to do next, or what makes “sense” to plan or go after, hasn’t ended very well. It’s risky business living in connection with the wisdom of your body. Sometimes I feel those sacral tingles for something absolutely ridiculous, that after researching feels less ridiculous but very much risky, and I know I owe it to myself to try it.

I’m currently fleshing out my B2B offerings, which has given me all kinds of sacral excitement, as well as a writing workshop and a creative project I’ve been working on for a while. Those projects have timelines, goals, and to-do lists. There’s structure and consistency. But, I’m not attached to them. I haven’t decided before I’ve lived in the belly of them if they will be things that last 10-15 years. I can see their evolution and I will show up for them as long as they move, compel and delight me.

I’m not fixed in my identity, I don’t utter the words, “well this is just who I am and I ain’t changing”, nah there’s always room to grow and to challenge myself. I don’t think that just because I do something it makes it right or better. It’s just different. I know that I need to get better at initiating things. I’m on a road trip to defining what consistency means to me. I’m aware that I’m not a long-term goal girly, but micro-goals can support me endlessly. I know that my future self will thank me for doing things I really don’t want to do right now, like making investments and figuring out pensions and shit. I know that’s an act of love for myself even if I would rather be all whimsical, la-la-la, and freedom-seeking as the Sagittarius I am.

With that said, there’s a deliciously spiralic and sporadic way of living slowly and softly that is at the core of who I am and I stand in that. I stand in the knowing that my life is one that’s centred around presence, and the felt sense of things that aren’t tangible. Being driven by purpose, intention and values instead of how, who, where and when’s. In me knowing who I am, I am also open to not knowing. The next version of me might well be a planner and goal-setter wielding Smythson diaries and agendas; I guess the beauty of not planning anything, is that I’ll just have to wait and see if she ever turns up.

---

5 Random Things That Made Me Think and Feel Things
A weekly edit for paid subscribers of the articles, videos, food, beauty and other things from life, with what they made me think and feel about the human experience.

This week you can expect: Debauchery and Big money in Industry (tv show), sticky bun supremacy, Sex worker storytelling, the allure and downfall of luxury hotels and more.

If you’re a paid subscriber, then look out for this in your inbox on Thursday!

Upgrade now, to receive.