I’m a control freak, I admit it. Everyone who knows me knows I like to have every tiny detail planned out and I like to be able to control what happens and when things happen, but recently I’ve been feeling the pressure of becoming a senior and figuring out my vocation in life. I thought I had a plan but recently that plan was completely torn apart by things I have no control over and now I’m left going through the same struggle of anxiety and panic. But as I’ve learned over this past spring break, it’s impossible to plan for everything just as it is impossible to control everything.

As you all know, the coronavirus pandemic has basically shut down our society, causing many people to fear simply going to the grocery store. So planning a spring break trip to visit my grandparents in Florida (who had been there since New Year’s Day), was next to impossible as Florida had quickly become a hot zone for the contagious virus. My family still insisted on going though, as we hadn’t seen our grandparents in almost three months, which is quite a while for my family considering we’re very close. The coming days before flying down to Florida, I continually asked my dad what we would be doing once we landed. He always gave me a classic dad answer, “I don’t know or we’ll see when we get there.” Well, as it turns out, we didn’t plan much at all. With the coronavirus spreading and becoming a global pandemic, we didn’t know what places or activities would be open or available. (You know it’s bad when Disney World closes.) But nonetheless, we still found things to do and entertain ourselves like playing 31, a card game favored in my family. We also went to the beach just about every day before the beaches were eventually closed at the end of my trip. By then, my family had gone to at least three beautiful beaches in three amazing cities: Fort Myers, Cape Coral and my personal favorite, Captiva Island. Captiva is on Sanibel Island, and while most of the beaches were closed to the public at the time, we were able to find a beach that wasn’t closed in Captiva. After we swam around for a few hours, we wandered around Captiva and stumbled upon a wonderful little restaurant called The Bubble Room, a place my dad had been to once before. He and all the locals of Captiva raved about their wonderful desserts, so naturally I had to try their cake. Each individual slice of cake was big enough to feed at least three people, but since we wanted to try multiple desserts, we got two giant slices of cake, classic red velvet and orange crunch. My dad chose a slice of key lime pie. Everything was absolutely delicious. I would marry the orange crunch cake in a heartbeat, it’s that good.

All in all, at the end of the trip, I had an amazing time. I was able to spend hours swimming at the beach and working on a golden tan, explore less commercialized parts of Florida and even meet up with my best friend, Rachel, who had been spending her spring break in a nearby city, all without planning a thing. It’s ok to not have a plan all the time. As a junior, almost a senior, I feel constant pressure to figure out a plan for after high school, but I think it’s time everyone takes a break from all the planning to see where life takes us.