Some places you can't get to unless you first get lost!
As I was looking at the road sign, the old bus driver smiled.
ROAD CLOSED. DETOUR AHEAD.
“You look downcast,” he said, I've been wanting to do this for years.
He chuckled.
That's the reason for life's detours, I laughed politely not realizing that he was not referring to the road.
At age 16 I already had a blueprint for my life and it looked beautiful.
I Graduate with distinction, then Study architecture.
Create skylines of which people would be proud even after my own demise.
I even had a sketching notebook of buildings I wanted to build someday.
All the lines I drew were like promises to my future.
Then Life erased the blueprint.
A stroke occurred my dad in the last year of secondary school.
Our finances were stripped from our savings due to hospital expenses.
University was no longer an option that could be afforded.
As my classmates posted images of the campus in social media, I would get up in the morning to work in a local shop that printed storefront signs.
Each of the congratulatory postings was a reminder my life was on hold, and everyone else's had started.
They referred to it as a "gap year.
I knew, on the deepest level, that it wasn't a gap.
It was a detour.
Months became years.
The printing shop was slowly becoming a familiar place.
I got to design graphics.
Then branding.
Then digital illustration.
By now customers were calling me by name.
One afternoon, an old woman came in with an old picture.
She quietly said this, "My husband died last year.
It's the only photograph of us together.
The photo was so faded that only minimal details were still visible, Not sure if it's salvageable.
But I tried.
For three nights I patched up all the cracks, all the broken corners and all the faded smiles.
This I returned when she came back.
She stared at it.
Then she cried, “They've come back to life.”
Before she left, she gave me a hug and It was the first time I found out that I wasn't only touching up photos.
I was saving images and warping time.
Word spread.
Wedding photographs were brought back by people, damaged.
Old family portraits.
Graduation pictures.
Documents recovered from flood and fire.
Both had a tale to tell.
I was told a part of their story by each one of these trustworthy.
I didn't know but I became an artist.
Not the architect that I thought I'd find.
But one person who recouped lives in a different manner.
Several years later i was invited to give a talk at a creative conference and in the network session, I had the opportunity to meet one of my old classmates.
"So...
Have you ever been a part of the architecture profession?
I smiled.
"No."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be."
He looked confused.
I indicated the exhibition hall.
All the photographs on those walls were in my possession.
Families were reunited with memories that they lost.
Kids with restored pictures of grandparents they had never met.
Smiles returned.
Stories rescued.
Well, I still create things," I replied.
"Just not with concrete."
The conference was ended late.
On the way home I spotted a familiar sign.
DETOUR
Main road was being built.
I waved and steered without delay.
Some years ago I'd have seen that sign as a nuisance.
It was like an old friend now.
I have picked up a lesson in my life: Roads and I share a common trait.
The quickest road may not always be the deepest.
The journey you never planned on taking can become the one you were always meant to take.
Only when you make it to the place...
it was never a wrong turn.
It was just another place.
Note
AI-Free Content
Thank you for reading and commenting. Until next time 💐
Image used are generated with Chatgpt
