Meet Me at the Lake explores the ways reality interferes with plans. Fortune illustrates this primarily through the broken one-year plans of Fern and Will, as well as how their lives in the present differ from the ones they plan for themselves at 22.

Fortune underscores the unpredictable nature of life and death and how it can interfere with plan-making. Will recognizes that “[t]en-year plans are bullshit” because no one “knows where they’ll be or who they’ll be in ten years” (233). This proves true when Will and Fern, 10 years later, end up being exactly who they said they wouldn’t be in their one-year plans. Fern’s plan declares she “WON’T BE WORKING AT BROOKBANKS RESORT” and “WILL NOT BE LIVING IN MUSKOKA” (233). However, 10 years after making this list, Fern is living in Muskoka and running Brookbanks Resort after her mother’s sudden death. When Fern’s reality changed, her plans changed too.

This is also true of Will, whose one-year plan declares he “WON’T BE WORKING IN AN OFFICE (NO TIES ALLOWED)” and “WON’T TREAT ART LIKE A HOBBY” (234). He also adds that he’ll be “KIND OF BROKE” (234). However, the Will Baxter that resurfaces in Fern’s life 10 years later is the opposite.