Plans and Paths

What is it they say about the best laid plans …

Three years ago I was offered a job that took me away from the centre of the universe and everything and everyone I knew. I came here very skeptical of everything but the job and a handful of friends. I never really thought I would call this place home. I always planned to be gone within a year or two. That is the funny thing about plans isn’t it, they change. I was talking to the lady tonight and the conversation turned to life plans and paths.

My plan we always to work hard and be successful, it is what I know, what I love and what I know I can do. My path to get there has never been as certain and my plan. How I get there has never been clear to me. Anytime someone asks me -where do I see myself in five years - I can never tell them because I don’t know. I am coming to realize that the SSM needed to follow through with his plan and find his path. It reminded me of a time when I was so focused on a path that I hurt someone I cared about.

Six months before I took my current job I applied for a job that would have taken me from the centre of the universe and I did so without consulting my boyfriend of over a year. My plan was career and this job fit perfectly into my plan. The day I found out I got the interview I was ecstatic and nervous. I wanted to talk to him about how I was feeling and what was going to happen and he wanted nothing to do with me.

At the time I was really mad at him for leaving me when I needed to talk and figure things out, but in hind site he was probably hurt by the fact that I was planning my future and it didn’t seem to matter whether he was there or not. My plan was about my career and if it diverged from the relationship path, well, that can be the price of success. It wasn’t that I wanted out of the relationship or thought it unimportant, but my plan had been my focus for years and this man hadn’t been around nearly as long. I didn’t end up getting that job and when the time to apply somewhere else rolled around I did consult with him about the possibility of moving and he said he would consider leaving the centre of the universe. But that is another story.

Why did I pull this story from the vault for you today dear reader? Well it seems that I am going to step off the path for a while. I have made a decision to go home to my family for a while because I need to be with them and they would like the assistance. Plans changes, paths fork and life changes in ways we never saw coming.

The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley,
An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

**From the poem To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough by Robert Burns.

The Single Girl