Best laid plans

Photo Reyer Boxem

Best laid plans

By Niall Torris
3 June om 9:00 uur.
Laatst gewijzigd op 22 November 2020
om 16:20 uur.
June 3 at 9:00 AM.
Last modified on November 22, 2020
at 16:20 PM.

Uncertainty has become the new normal. What’s stranger still is that questions like ‘When will the university reopen?’, ‘When can I go back to work?’, ‘Will a deadly pandemic knock on my door?’, ‘When can I hug my friends and family again?’ all have the same answer, but I can’t say when it will be known. Strange times.

While this is uncertainty is an uncomfortable experience, I’m not ready to count it as a personal disaster just yet. As I see it, it seems that over the last year I’ve managed to trip and fall blindly into some excellent developments in my life, while my best laid plans have often gone completely awry.

Around this time last year, I was offered a pre-master at the University of Groningen. Honestly, I never thought I’d get an offer. I just wanted to see what I should improve on. I snapped up the chance and by August, I had cobbled together everything I needed for a semester in Groningen. Now I’m writing for the campus paper and preparing to move sweetly into my masters. Not bad.

None of this was in ‘the plan’ and I felt that I needed a better strategy for next time.

I had a flat, a job, plenty of new friends, and, of course, a few favourite bars. What could go wrong?

So, I got to work laying out a plan for moving to Groningen full-time by this July (after my pre-master). Everything was set out perfectly, I had a flat lined up to move into, a job back in Ireland to make a little money with, plenty of new friends in Groningen and, of course, a few favourite bars (Kult and Warhol are very high on that list). What could go wrong?

Well, even the best laid plans can go awry and as is so often the case, unforeseen events have completely destroyed them. This dramatic lack of certainty has brought me the familiar feeling of a restless mind which sometimes becomes so full that it seems to go blank. But what am I to do?

With answers to end this uncertainty hard to come, by I’ve had to carve out my own opportunities elsewhere. So far, I’ve rediscovered my love of writing fiction, of playing guitar, of tackling the mountain of books sitting in my room, and of so many other things. So maybe it’s not all bad…

But I am still hoping I can come back soon.

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