Can you plan your life?

Sometimes, life just drops a miracle in your lap...like getting pregnant, or accidentally finding a kindred spirit online, or being able to buy that house...things that change you for the rest of your life.

Then again, there's stuff you think you've planned...like going to school, or staying with the company, or taking a trip...and something unforseen happens to switch the course of those rivers. STILL, you learn and change.

Something small can be momentous, like reading a certain book just when you need it; something big can be 'just another day' later, like when the trip's been cancelled.

I mean, I rarely see this stuff coming, you know?
(But then, how could I know beforehand that my life would develop this way, hm? Would/could I have chosen a different path?)

Particularly about what's on my mind right now--my 'career'.

I was 17 and happened to walk into a cute store at the new mall, chatted with the owner and left with a job.
32 years and 4 owners later, that job ended.
I'd always scorned grocery store florists, but suddenly, I became one, and...wow...it's a thrill! (In fact, in these six years, I've probably equaled everything I'd done in the past 32, vase for vase, funeral for funeral, wedding for wedding).

Didn't see any of it coming, didn't plan it that way at all.

And now, I think I have a choice, but this could be illusion too: do I continue to be a florist? Is there something better or just different I could be doing? Something related, probably: I could rep for a silk flower company, or work in a craft store. Or, apply at my FavStore, huh?

I'm pretty sure I'd like to leave the day-to-day flower shop world.

I haven't spent a Mother's Day with my family in years, and most other holidays are subject to "is it my turn to work?"
Wedding bouquets are great fun to do, but corsage work makes me nuts, especially at prom time.
I'd miss contact with customers, but it's getting harder to answer affirmatively when they say, "You must LOVE working here!"

Hmm....I think that I'm being forced to make this decision right now, but it's actually been brewing for quite awhile.

My joie de vivre is being drained away at the shop these days, and I have an opportunity to change that now.

We'll soon see how ephemeral I can be, huh?