18 Life is What Happens When Nothing Goes to Plan

When I was a kid, I sorta had a plan for how my life would turn out. I am not sure what happened. I guess I’m okay with how it turned out.

Growing up, my mom always ingrained me and my siblings with the thought that once you finish college, you can go anywhere and do anything. Education is key. So the plan was to go to this prestigious religious university to get in touch with the religion I was baptized under, finish a degree in something, get a job, get a better job, and eventually go back to school to get extra letters attached to my name, write and publish stuff, probably teach, then retire. At a certain point in that very broad stroke plan, I was supposed to meet a husband, buy a house before getting married, procreate, get a dog, and done. Looking back on this, I probably knew even then it wouldn’t work out.

I didn’t finish college until YEARS after I started working. Once I was legal to get a job, I had one within months and never looked back. The job I got was far from what I even thought of getting. I was a very shy kid, I was afraid of people — my job now deals with interacting with a lot of people on a day to day basis (though I’m still scared of people). Most of what I write are business emails and letters rather than literary. I realized pretty late that I saw guys mainly as competition and thinking of any guy I knew personally in a romantic sense makes me cringe. I have no plans of getting married (though the kind of marriage I would need isn’t exactly legal here).

Nothing happened as planned. But awesome things have happened to my life that I didn’t plan. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD to Jeremiah. I guess he does for me too…

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