falling in mid-flight

this is your life
are you who you want to be?
is it everything you dreamed that it would be
when the world was younger and you had everything to lose?
-this is your life, switchfoot

If everything went according to plan, today I would be somewhere else.

I would be on a flight to Cincinnati, maybe even Toronto.

Or perhaps, at a different desk, at a different company, in a different industry.

But plans have a way of falling in mid-flight. Instead, I am here today, clueless about what the future holds for me. There are a million what-ifs running through my mind, and in some alternate universe I can see a version of me I had met once in my childhood dreams.

My entire life, I've always had everything planned carefully -- from my future plans to the most minute details of my next day. Lately, though, I have found myself wondering why I am where I am today. It feels like at some point in time, everything started spinning in the opposite direction.

Time is such a powerful tool. You never feel it, but it's always there, spinning its web, molding you into someone else. It's the force that brings people together; it's the same force that tears people apart, no matter how hard you fight against it. Fate. Destiny. That's what some people call it. I never believed in destiny, or predetermination. Yet I find myself asking why things have gone they way they have. Why do certain things happen at what seem to be the most inopportune times? Why do people enter and leave my life at the exact moment they do? Why does it have to feel like I'm being torn apart, then patched up with the greatest care, only to be shattered into a million pieces once more?

I wish I knew, but I'm just a pawn in this grand design.

Time has other plans for me.

* postcard lifted from PostSecret