Life requires figuring out the road ahead on your own, and there is often times internal “recalculating”.
You always need a back-up plan in life. Things doesn’t always work out the way we expect them to work out. Sometimes any bumps in the road are a result of our own choices, mistakes, whatever. Other times, life is cruel and bad things happen to good people.
As a child, I always expected to finish high school and go to college, do well, get a good job ….you know the drill. I never expected to not finish college right after high school. I had no idea that the fairy-tale marriage I expected to have would end in my late husband’s death after the birth of our second child. But I got through it because I quickly learned to trudge on through life. I learned that we need to make the most of whatever is thrown our way in life, no matter what causes these bumps in the road.
I figured out a while ago that if I wanted to change certain things, I had to make the changes myself. Instead of being disappointed in myself for not finishing school, I had to make finishing school a priority and not look back. Sometimes not looking back is easier said than done, though. I get that.
Other times, life is cruel and we are forced to figure out the next step, usually a step we never in a million years thought we’d be taking. How we handle these steps says a lot about our inner spirit and teaches us a lot about ourselves. I never thought I’d be able to handle what I went through. So when I look at my schedule right now, one filled with multiple due dates for multiple major assignments, I cringe (and sometimes want to cry) and realize if I take it one day at a time, sometimes even one hour at a time, I can get through the remainder of this tough semester.
What prompted this post is the fact that a good friend of mine lost her husband last week. This friend is someone who was a huge help to me when I was widowed. Her husband had been sick for almost 4 years and she’s been through a lot in that time. She’s handled what life has thrown at her with a sense of grace that most of us will never possess. She was thrown a monkey wrench in life like I was, and she will get through it because she’s strong.
I didn’t know I was strong. I never believed that I’d get through what I went through. I also never expected to not finish school when I was younger. I honestly didn’t expect a lot of events of my younger days to happen, but as I have gotten older, I’ve learned that it’s important to be prepared as best we can for life’s unexpected events.
Life is constantly “recalculating”.
