What to Expect

For all the wonderful hours spent planning, much is to be said for embracing spontaneity and flying by the seat of your pants.  The truth is, you can plan the most wonderful of days, weeks, months, lifetimes, but we all have to--in moments--account for and respond to the unexpected wrench.  You can mourn the loss of what was, or you can see the beautiful in what (now) is. When I got to San Diego, I expected a lot of things to be different than they are now.  Last month I expected a different outlook for this month, and invariably as I plan for the road ahead it will look feel smell and sound much differently than I imagine it to at this very moment.  What I can draw from this is the following:

I am limited by what I do not know (yet) so to account for my unfortunate ignorance, I have to remain open to whatever the universe has planned to teach me.  Also, those lessons I receive would be best received without objection.

There is always always nonacceptance.  I promise that it is not intentional or on purpose, but it happens.   When I complain or question why some things cannot be different, I am rejecting what is rather than accepting it.  Even if I make my mind up to change it (assuming that I have the power to), I must first accept the things as it stands, ready to be changed.

Most of all, I think I have expected X to bring Y.  For example, age to bring wisdom or time to bring healing.  What I have learned is that every things comes on its own and in its own time.  This year I am turning 28 and to be perfectly truthful I have no idea what 28 is supposed to look like.  For that reason alone I am excited.  It is like being given a blank stretch of canvas that fills every corner of my wildly imaginative mind.  I can do what I want and I am up against no expectation.  I cannot say the same of other ages.  I felt that 25 would mark my adulthood.  I knew that 27 would be the end of my Masters degree and a major timestamp at the beginning of my career.  I always imagined that 31 would be my preparing to settle down and begin to seriously entertain the idea of motherhood.  But 28?  I got nothing.  And I could not be more excited about it.

I still feel like a kid sometimes and I cherish those moments.  Just as much as I do those times when I feel very adult.  I am okay with being both.  I believe I am comfortable being who I am and where at some points in my life have felt as though I was holding my breath, now I breathe freely.  I do find myself, however, looking up to the heavens--much like the photo I took of myself.  Wondering, not for answers or for God or even for meaning, I believe I have those and am satisfied with more as more is revealed to me...but wondering if I will exceed my own expectations.  If I--like my view of the world--am limited by what I do not know yet.  If my view of my Self will expand as time passes on and the limitless sky stretches just an inch further into the horizon.

I wonder if even though I believe I have attained much of what I have because of the belief that "I didn't know I couldn't"  it can more accurately be attributed to "I knew what I could."  See the difference?

Maybe that is all I can expect of myself.  To be in wonder, as I always am and always have been.