At some point, most of us make a plan. Mine involved music, writing, and the general belief that if I worked hard enough, life would eventually cooperate.
Life, apparently, had not agreed to any of this.
Some parts of the plan worked. Other parts took long detours, changed shape, or disappeared for years. There were careers I never expected, projects that went nowhere, and dreams that kept showing up long after I thought I had outgrown them.
For a long time, I treated every wrong turn as proof that I had gotten off course. Looking back, many of those turns were the course. They led me to people, places, and stories I could not have planned.
I still make plans. Apparently, hope is a difficult habit to break. But I hold them more loosely now. A plan can give you a direction. It cannot promise you a straight road.
Sometimes the dream changes. Sometimes we change. The road bends either way.
All we can do is keep going and pay attention to where it takes us.