Do you have a plan?
Or do you just have a series of obligations you keep mistaking for a direction?
I had an accident recently. Nothing life-altering, nothing cinematic. Just inconvenient. A fall, a fracture, the usual kind of interruption. The kind that doesn’t teach you anything obvious, except that your bones aren’t invincible and your calendar doesn’t care. The kind that doesn’t ask for sympathy but still takes up space in your day. Still makes you aware of your body in ways you’d rather not be. Time moves strangely when you’re stuck still. Days stretch and blur, like wet paint no one asked to dry.
It’s strange how fast you can go from a person with plans to a person who’s just trying to get out of bed without cursing. That shift happens quietly. One moment you’re thinking three months ahead. The next, you’re just figuring out how to shower without reopening something that already hurts.
It made me wonder what we mean when we say we have a plan.
We dress it up. Long-term goals. Five-year projections. Vision boards. But really, most of us are improvising. We take the next step because it’s there, not because we believe it leads anywhere definitive. We apply to the job, say yes to the gig, sign the lease, renew the subscription. We try to stay in motion, afraid that if we stop, we’ll lose whatever it is we haven’t quite earned yet.
And all the while, we call that momentum a plan.
No one prepares you for the kind of silence that follows when your usual productivity is disrupted. Not the quiet of peace, but of irrelevance. You’re still you, technically. But the version of you that people respond to—the one who shows up, performs, produces, replies—is suddenly paused. And in that pause, you realize just how much of your life was designed around being useful to others.
I started wondering if I ever had a plan at all. Or if I just learned to package my coping mechanisms in ways that looked goal-oriented.
There’s a sentence by James Baldwin I’ve been thinking about: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” It doesn’t offer comfort. It offers clarity. And when you’re lying still, unable to keep pace, clarity feels like permission. Permission to stop pretending a detour is a failure. Permission to just be, without having to turn your stalling into strategy.
Because sometimes, you just get hurt. Sometimes, you just run out of energy. Sometimes, you just don’t know what’s next. And pretending otherwise doesn’t build resilience. It just isolates you further when reality knocks.
So no, I don’t have a plan right now. Not really. I have instincts. I have obligations. I have questions I’m still afraid to ask. I have small moments where I catch myself still caring about stupid things, and I try not to judge that. I don’t know what I’m building. I’m not sure I need to know.
Maybe a life isn’t something you architect. Maybe it’s something you collage—cut from old hopes, glued together with quiet resilience, held in place by invisible threads of luck and longing.
That’s not a plan.
But it’s not nothing.
Or is that just me, patching meaning together in the dark, hoping someone else is doing the same?
If this piece meant something to you—
This space will always be free. Like a room you can walk into without knocking, without owing.
But I’ve quietly added a donation option. No pressure. No paywalls. Just trust.
A recent accident left me a little off balance—physically, and if I’m honest, financially too.
So if something here stayed with you, and you feel like giving back: thank you.
Because the words that move us most shouldn’t be locked away.
At least not here
Most of us think we have a plan, a way to move forward, but as they say, sh** happens. Maybe it's the universe telling us to slow down, take a break (no pun intended).
In 2020 I fell headfirst down a flight of stairs, broke four or five bones in my left leg, and shattered my foot. The doctor would not do surgery as it was a the beginning of Covid. By day four in the hospital they were wearing hazmat gear! I was sure I would die, especially when sent to a rehab center for 90 days, with no visitors allowed.
Suddenly something clicked: I had no control, so all I could do was "one day at a time." and try to manage my emotional distress. I started writing haiku with appreciation of the small wonders happening outside my window.
All my devices at home: tv, phone, optimum, car, etc. went unpaid, so I had tons of bills when I got out. It was a disaster. I now I have pain and difficulty walking, and sports are history, but I'm still here.
I've spent the last five years contemplating Mother Nature. I"m grateful for all good things that come my way....a phone call from a friend, books, poetry, Subtack, and more.
Injured, yet you create this! In awe, as always, but this makes me feel beautifully small in an expansive world. This - "Maybe a life isn't something you architect. Maybe it's something you collage--cut from old hopes, glued together with quiet resilience, held in place by invisible threads of luck and longing," is all of us. We're right here, together. 💛