A travel app I use just reminded me that tomorrow night I was supposed to be on a flight to California for the ISTE conference. Cancelled. The next trip on the app was to be 3 weeks from now, heading to Barcelona, where I was to get on my first ever cruise ship with two stops in Spain and three stops in Italy, then spend a week in Portugal. Cancelled.

Will anyone be planning a trip on a cruise ship any time soon? Is my trip to Europe delayed a year or altogether cancelled? ‘The best-laid plans of mice and men… often go awry.’ It is easy to wallow a bit in the shadow of what could have been, but I suddenly find myself making new plans to visit family. Unexpected, and pressing, the plans are thrust upon me, yet something I’m looking forward to. I very well might have been cancelling my ISTE trip anyways.

We tend to plan things like we can somehow control the future. We can’t. So many things can disrupt what we hope to do in the coming days and weeks. There’s nothing like a pandemic to wake us up to that reality! How many jobs have been lost? How many travel plans cancelled? How many concerts, shows, and sporting events put on hold?

Life often gets interrupted. Sometimes it surprises us with unexpected delights, and sometimes with disappointing or devastating news. We can be saddened by upsetting news and plans gone awry, or we can recognize that circumstances beyond our control will often dictate that our best-laid plans are just that, plans… and plans change.