Bad luck & Opportunities

How unpredictable life is! Sure we all know this and I do too, but it doesn’t cease to amaze me.

Here I was putting together a plan and strategy for my life when bang! Everything goes for a toss.

As of the 1st of this month, JJ has been posted to Afghanistan by his company. They say he will be there for one and half to two years.

I honestly believed he and I were both finally at stage in our lives, where we could finally get married and start the next phase. But with this development, all plans are going to have to wait for these 2 years at least.

It made me intensely unhappy when I heard about this. Because I knew that it would be foolish for JJ to pass up this opportunity. For those few days I felt rather fatalistic about the whole thing. I resented him putting me in such a position.

I am the kind of person who relies on my friends a lot when I am going through a hard time. But this time I didn’t really talk to anyone about this. It was one of the lowest phases in my life and I couldn’t find the words to express myself to even my closest friends. I just kept to myself, not even talking to JJ (who at the time looked like the culprit to me).

One night we connected online and talked about it for hours. I heard the unhappiness in his voice too. I also heard a note of resignation and this made me feel even angrier. What had we done to deserve such bad luck?

As we talked, it suddenly occurred to me that I could also hear a hint of excitement in his manner. Putting further thought into it, I also began to see the move as the huge opportunity it really was.

Of course it would be good for JJ, and I don’t mean only the money aspect. It was a chance for him to take on new challenges and master them. The networking opportunities, the experience; everything seemed right about it.

Then I thought of my own life; my own career and my own dreams. Here I was being handed time and space to do all the things I thought I may not ever get a chance to and for the first time without a huge price attached to it.

When we weighed these aspects, we realized that if life were a 10, we were getting chance to make good of 9 out 10 things. The only downer being that we would have to be apart for that much longer.

We both slowly accepted this turn of events and are now busy trying to do the best we can. It isn’t easy, but it’s not the end of the world either.

I look forward to both of us proving to ourselves and the world what we are capable of and then getting together to start our belated next phase. We have both put a lot into our relationship. It has been hard, but we are stronger for that. I am sure that when we are finally together, it’s going to be all worth it.