“Expect the unexpected.”

I considered this quote as I stirred from my sleep on my couch the other night. Expect the unexpected. I repeated it in my mind as I opened my eyes and saw the meteorologist in his glory, telling viewers to expect the unexpected with the bomb cyclone that was on its way. Rather than what he hoped, I did not prepare for the storm approaching. A different image came to my mind.

I all of a sudden thought about how many times my plans have changed since my freshman year of college. The thought of expecting the unexpected scared me so much that I attempted to plan every detail for the next ten years. I chose the major of Speech Pathology without enough consideration because I would definitely get a job.

I would get a few certifications, in Elementary and Special Education and English and then I would go off to grad school and begin the good work of saving the world! (Or the world of children with speech impediments, but it was certainly a start). I would meet some friends, have the same ones all throughout and everything would be right in my corner of the world.

Yet, to my eighteen-year-old horror, most of my plans were not the ones that I had kept. I found myself to be dissatisfied with what I was studying from the beginning. I missed literature, I missed poetry, I missed writing…I had quite a few telltale signs of needing to change my major, but I ignored them.

To my dismay, (and eventually my joy), there was an entirely different plan for me. I did not want to be a speech pathologist, as I realized while attempting to gain interest as I watched videos of speech therapy sessions. I did not want to work with elementary students, even though they are cute and never allow a dull moment. I want to write and provide middle and high school students with the opportunities to discover the beautiful world that writing and literature allows.

College has been a world that has made me uncomfortable, frustrated, joyful…there are many adjectives to describe it, but in doing so, I am able to understand that it has allowed me to grow in ways I did not think I needed to. I walked in as an 18-year-old under the impression that I would look in the mirror on my graduation day, with my tassel and my ridiculous looking cap and gown and be the same person I was when I started. I would have the same friends; I would have the same plan for the next ten years.

On the contrary, I will not be looking in the mirror next May and seeing what I thought I would see as a freshman. What I will see is far better than what I expected.