From Tara: Negatives to be grateful for...

I once heard someone say "If you want to make God laugh, make a plan," and I never forgot it.

Because I always plan, and have always had a plan since graduating high school. I still remember my Mom calling my Dad because she was not particularly thrilled with my "plan" to be a theater major, and my Dad just laughed, and said "Give her a break. What was our plan when we were her age?"

After college, my life plan was to go to graduate school and become a theater professor. But that did not happen. My next plan was to go to Lamar and become a high school teacher. But because of certain family obligations, that did not happen either. So then I'd focus on trying to be a novelist, because writing had always been a hobby, and why not do something that I love. But my novel never got published, and all I received were rejections. For everything, even short stories. All the while, I'm working at several different casinos and feeling pretty low about myself because I'm not accomplishing any of my plans, which must make me a loser.

But I'm gaining all this experience at the casinos, and then suddenly one day, I find myself as an HR Trainer at a casino, and sitting next to an adorably nerdy IT guy. Now I realize that if my greatest negatives had not occurred, my greatest positive would not have occurred either. It doesn't change the fact that I still wish I could have and be all those things listed above. But I am very grateful that they didn't happen, because I wouldn't have the lovely life I have now.