John sat atop of the small flight of concrete stairs gazing in bemused consternation at the new wrinkle life had thrown his way. On some level, he wasn’t even surprised. Over the last few years nothing had gone the way he’d planned. Even the smallest of goals had gone awry in spectacular fashion.

He once had wanted to make his parents, stern but loving academics, proud of him. To that extent, though he found clarity and joy in physical labor and creation, he only allowed a fraction of his time to small crafts and enough exercise maintain health, focusing instead on a strong foundation in logic, the sciences, and a smattering of the humanities. While he found little pleasure in it, John at least had a talent for numbers and patterns, and he felt surges of worth and warmth when his father gave him that small nod and smile of his for John’s high grades or debate victories. Before it all went pear-shaped, he’d even managed a perfect SAT at the end of his sophomore year, which he had heard his mother crowing over to the small group she welcomed once a week for their booze… er book club.

Those successes made the car accident that took their lives and left him comatose for two weeks that summer all the more crushing: for it not only removed his loved ones and sense of stability, but also his direction and the drive that had sustained it.

John, while slightly introverted, had been an open and friendly guy, and he thought he had a good share of friends. The few friends that came to visit him were sympathetic, but John’s pain and loss seemed too much of a burden for them, or so it seemed. Conversation was stilted and awkward. They’d all led very sheltered lives, never confronting tragedy or loss in any meaningful way, a loss of a distant relative or a family pet. John learned to hide the rawness, the tears, and the growing sense of isolation and betrayal, but it didn’t really help. By the time he left the hospital and entered foster care no one was really reaching out to him.

John didn’t have any relatives who could take him in, but his parents had been moderately wealthy, owning their own house outright and with very little debt. After a frank discussion with the lawyer that was executing the will and his new guardians, he decided to get his GED and emancipate so that he could return to his home. He had inherited funds sufficient to live frugally on interest alone, and he was almost 18 anyway.

He was living on his own by November. The winter passed in a blur- he made no extravagant purchases, the only ones of note were to fully outfit a room with exercise equipment and to make a small workshop in the garage. He didn’t know what he wanted, nor where he was going, but he had found that pushing his body to its limits had the remarkable ability to shut his brain and feelings off, and let him just… be. The other object of his focus was wood crafts: learning to carve, join and inlay. He made little wooden cages, small boxes, and geometric patterns, losing himself in the precision just as he would try to lose himself in labor.

Spring came, and with it a restlessness that no amount of weights or running could soothe, an itch in his mind that books and carving did not scratch. He needed…. something. He was lonely- but it wasn’t that, he didn’t really trust the world enough to try connecting on anything but a superficial level. John prowled through the house like a caged animal, trying to think of something when, in a moment of serendipity, he brushed by a small stack of books, knocking them to the ground. As John cursed and grumbled he bent to pick up the mess, only to freeze for just a moment. He let out a rueful chuckle, then neatly stacked the books on the small side table they’d tumbled from. John took a deep breath, then smiled, the tension in his body vanishing as if it never was. With quick steps he grabbed a notebook and went off to catalogue what he had and what he’d need, leaving the study where a small shaft of evening light was falling upon the book that he’d left on top of the stack, the one that had given him such a marvelous idea: On the Road.

A flurry of activity and planning, figuring out what would fit in the car, what was needed, what was not, where to go, what to look for, the etiquette of transients, planning a budget, securing the house, getting licensed and insured- all told he was ready by the end of May, a week after his 18th birthday.

This brought him to today, where John came down the stairs for his great adventure; to find himself, his purpose…

… Only to see that, once again, he’d have to change his plans.

Rule #1 Plans are a great way to pretend you are in control. Don't let yourself believe in them.