Deflector

Monica: I've been thinking about how certain events in life lead to choices that deflect us away from the course we have charted for ourselves toward other possibilities. Each choice leads us down a new path with its own successes and failures and we will never know where other paths might have led. As I creep closer to 40, I consider the lives I didn't choose: I didn't go to an Ivy League college, marry my first love, get a master's degree, start a family, join the Foreign Service, live in Africa, become an Olympic swimmer, or learn to speak Mandarin fluently. I'm not the person I had imagined I'd become when I was 15, and yet I can say I'm happy with how I've turned out. I feel so much gratitude for the places I've been and the people who have inspired me and the many deflections along the way that have brought me to here, now.


Evelyn: The idea of deflection as a turning from a straight direction touches on the many detours that move through my life, and as I go with the flow I find that I can bend and shift as needed; because sometimes hitting the nail on the head isn't the best thing, and not every problem needs a hammer. Yes, cliche, and yet the more flexible I am, the easier life flows, the fewer disappointments, the greater the gifts.