When I awoke yesterday I didn’t know what the day had in store. It was my first, official, day of ‘not working at the shelter’ that wasn’t ‘holiday time’.

My thought was to make a difference to the environment by not driving my car and not spending any money.

And then, my friend Dave called. “What’s on your agenda today?” I asked him.

“I’ve got to pick up boxes.”  He’s moving to Winnipeg at the end of the month and is in the throes of packing.

“Do you need a ride?” I asked. He lives downtown and has not seen the need for a car in years.

He did and I agreed to pick him up later in the day after I’d finished off a writing piece I’m doing for a company in Vancouver.

I quickly rethought my notion of not driving for the day — helping a friend trumps environmental footprint. Except, he called me back a few hours later to inform me he’d found a website that will deliver the boxes, the next day. No need to drive.

Good thing. Because in the process of going through the mail, I found the notice with the renewal form for my driver’s licence. It had expired on my birthday! Dec 9. I kinda had to go and get it renewed before I drove people around, don’t you think? And I kinda needed my daughter to drive me to the Registry Office to do it (how sweet is that? She gets to make a difference too!) No sense taunting the gods of roadfarers, or the police, driving on an expired licence. For some reason, in my mind, there’s a difference between knowingly driving on an expired licence and accidentally doing so.

No licence meant it was a good day to save the planet. Not a good day to go out and about. And while I would miss dropping in on the rehearsal of a group of clients from the homeless shelter who were preparing for their world-premiere of a radio play they’d written as a collective, which I had also planned on doing, I definitely didn’t need to risk getting a ticket.

Back to Plan A.

Make a difference to the planet today.

Make a difference in someone’s life tomorrow. And even better – go to the dress rehearsal of the play too!

Another lesson learned — when making a difference, be flexible. You never know what life will deliver up.