I had big plans this week—but none of them came through.

Seasonal sickness claimed me like a weak member of the herd. The theatre production I worked so hard on? I missed opening weekend. The newspaper article I’d been dying to finish? Fell through. This week’s classes leading up to finals? Missed all of those too.

Every little thing I poured my heart into and looked forward to slipped right through my fingers like sand. All of it happening at once like some joke.

“Man plans, God laughs.” As the old proverb goes.

And in the background of it all, the world feels like it’s falling apart. Overstimulated chaos, senseless hate, and devastating divison. It’s hard to escape the noise and devastation of it all.

With everything happening—everything we’re all trying to process both big and small—it feels like even the smallest inconvenience can make us spin out of orbit. It feels like it’s commonplace to be spiralling or having a nervous breakdown. But here’s the thing: maybe feeling that is okay.

Maybe it’s okay that nothing’s going as planned. We’ve all been there, more so than not it seems: that moment when everything falls apart, and it feels like the universe’s entire mass has fallen onto your chest. A compilation of panic and anxiety that can hardly be measured.

The weight of expectations, from ourselves and others, is too much. We try so hard to keep everything together but sometimes the pieces don’t fit—even if we’re so certain they do.

In those moments, we can remember that at least we are still standing and still breathing. Allowing yourself to feel the burn out can sometimes be the grounding you need. Maybe it can be a sort of recalibration.

I don’t know the best solution. I can’t sum up how I’ll make up for this week or what the next one will bring. I don’t know how this immolated world will resolve itself.

Sometimes, the mess is just the mess, and that’s all it is. We don’t always need a fix. We don’t always need to say, “this happened for a reason.” Not everything will be a perfect process or even a process at all.

Maybe what we need is space to just be with the chaos, to let ourselves feel the weight of it all without needing to solve it. Maybe that, in and of itself, can be the resolve.

It sometimes feels impossible to be human! Not every moment will go how we want it to, and the world certainly isn’t in our individual hands—it won’t stop spinning either.

Even with these scattered pieces, messed up plans, and a slightly broken heart—it’s okay. It has to be. I’ll breathe through it, let the tidal wave hit me, and just be. I’ll float back to shore eventually. We all will.