I’m starting this story about 22 hours after being broken up with by my partner of a year and a half. I published it here a while later. It’s not important for you to know this.

Important details to note: He’s Danish, I’d been living with him in Denmark, and, aside from a handful of friends and a job I haven’t even started yet (which I took for the sake of giving this relationship a real shot), the rest of my life is in the United States.

Sometimes, we take risks hoping for the best, but end up having to deal with the aftermath of a worst case scenario. This is about the times when the risks you take don’t pay off. At least, not how you thought they would.

The most important thing I’ve learned from big, life-altering risks, is to never assume my expectations will be the real outcome. There are simply too many moving parts, and so many different possible directions all those moving parts can take. If the risk means having to factor in other people’s wants, needs, or dreams, a bunch of unforeseen circumstances, or dealing with the nightmare that is logistics, the odds of everything going exactly right are pretty much completely against you.

But, with all that in mind, you can confidently enter any scenario knowing that it will never go the way you think it will.

Now, that doesn’t mean that being aware of the diversions and detours will be easy-breezy — make no mistake: when things go off-path, it will regularly fucking suck. But it’s okay. And, at the risk of sounding like a sappy and out-of-touch hippie, I’ll be damned if these failures don’t lead to something even more wonderful than you ever could have imagined.

So, for now, I look forward to the eventual good things. And I’m grateful for the goodness I’m surrounded by in light of a dark turn. And, I’ll order a big ass pizza and let myself be fucking sad when I feel like it.