I'm expecting

And, it's been a year. 2.2.22

It’s been a year, hasn’t it? A year of not getting back to normal, a year of choosing words and allies carefully. A year of wagging fingers and gnashing teeth, of wondering what’s become of us. It’s also been a year since my mother made her final exit at the age of 93. For those of us fortunate enough to have parents with whom we more or less get along, losing them is pivotal. In truth, I’m sure it’s pivotal regardless of the relationship.

I am inclined to look for silver linings. Mom modeled that alongside, ironically, a tendency to feel let down.  She set a high bar for expectations, fastening her hopes way the hell up there with pins that often didn’t hold. And how could they, subject as they were to the winds of change and the whims of people with their own ideas of how to be in the world?

For me, her presumptions were often an emotional millstone. It was hard to know where her needs ended and mine began. Now, I occasionally quip: “Better living through lowered expectations!” There is something to be said for learning to flow, for loosening your grip on presumed outcomes in full awareness that you don’t actually have as much control as you think you have. No matter how well you plan, how carefully you instruct, how deftly you manage, life is wily and suffers no consequences for changing the rules mid-game. Come to think of it, there aren’t really any rules. More what you call guidelines. (©Captain Barbossa)

Lately, though, I’ve felt like there is an aspect to this that deserves more consideration. I’ve been thinking about those curious laws of attraction and the Henry David Thoreau philosophy of great expectations manifesting great things. Something I have just begun to realize, and by “just” we’re talking zygote not embryo, is that my mother’s high hopes weren’t ever about me, or anyone else for that matter. Mic drop. What a relief!

On the exhausting voyage of being human, her expectations – often not communicated until after they’d gone unmet - were her land mass on the horizon. She was always looking forward. Setting her sights on possibilities, pinning hopes, and planning ahead allowed her to move through disappointments, inspired her to count on what the next day had to offer. As Thoreau recognized, “We find only the world we look for.”

The epiphany, then, is not to sift for silver linings among the ashes of dashed dreams, but to believe they’ve already lifted off and are gliding on a thermal somewhere nearby. The work is in expecting greatness even when your hopes lie in a crumpled heap at your feet. They don’t come factory standard, these things. They’re options, features that require we make a bigger investment of faith-currency. Life goes on either way. The question is, would we rather have the base model or the totally loaded ride, the you’re-never-gonna-believe this-shit model?  Oh, man, I’m ready to slip behind that wheel. I totally deserve it.

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In keeping with the fine art of daily discovery, I dedicate this post and this new endeavor to Tutu, my late mother. Nancy Barker Shaw, December 22, 1927 – January 31, 2021