"Itinerary": Could you have predicted the trajectory of your life? Which aspects were as you imagined they'd be and which weren't?

In "Itinerary", the narrator talks about making a time capsule with her friends when they were young. Her friends' lives did follow their predictions, while hers did not. Could you have predicted the trajectory of your life? Which aspects were as you imagined they'd be and which weren't?

Not in a heartbeat. It is SO not what I imagined when I was young. However, I did believe that I would be like Katherine Hepburn in Summertime: a teacher, unattached, and seeing Europe when I was 50. Dead on, and not that I had anything to do with the unfolding!!!

I never could have predicted the trajectory of my own life. I planned to stay single and teach in schools all over the world. Instead, I finished a master's degree and took a job in a new-to-me state where I met my husband. We moved three times after we were married and ended up living in a city with a multi-campus community college system. I got a job teaching English and realized I had found my calling---teaching mostly students who were the first in their families to go to college. Later, that changed somewhat as younger students began starting their college life in the community before going on to universities to complete their education.

More than most people, I think, I could have predicted the trajectory of my life. I am very fortunate to have the life I planned: a teaching career, a happy marriage, and children I love.

As a high school graduate in 1964 I could not have anticipated what was to come in the world (technical advancements, shrinking of the world, opportunities for women, the path of civil rights and social justice) or what role I would take in the world.