The Plan

I was born into a plan.

When I was five, I started kindergarten. So did just about every five-year-old in America. It was part of the plan.

I continued to follow the plan as I grew older. When I was 11, I started middle school. At 13, I celebrated my Bat Mitzvah. This was all according to the plan.

Despite changing schools at grades five, seven, and ten, I was still on the plan. I graduated from high school when I was 18. This was a highlight of the plan.

While some plans stop after high school, the plan I was born into included college. This summer, I will finish my college degree.

The plan dictated my full-time job from age five through twenty-two: school. It's what was expected, and it's what I did. But, like the Mayan calendar, the plan will soon abruptly stop. Specific expectations end.

My family does not have a trade into which each child is expected to enter. There is not a city in which the majority of the family lives.

The plan ends here. While it's expected that I will make a living and support myself, there is not a specific plan like there was through age 22. From now on, it's uncharted territory.