My mind is a making ice cream, constantly moving, stopping only to freeze up and think about one thing.
Then back to swirling and thinking about 15 other things.
I feel a bit unsettled as I wake today.
Unsure, but not sure what I am unsure about.
Is it the end of summer, school starting up?
Well, those two things are definitely part of it because just typing that was hard.
I am not great at transitions I suppose.
Did we have fun this summer?
Did we get to everything we wanted to do?
Was I everything I needed to be for the kids?
So I start to list things off, we went to the beach, enjoyed visits from family, we took a road trip, ate ice cream, played tennis, slept in…
But was it enough to make them happy, for 2017 to be the best summer ever?
I am not sure what I am doing, why I feel this pressure or ask these questions.
I am seriously just writing and processing this as I go.
And then the answer hits almost mid-keystroke.
I ask these questions because I have these expectations myself. To be clear, expectations that I lay on other people.
I want the grand sweeping gestures, I want the picture perfect moments that I imagine. I want the big moments that knock you off your feet and the small moments that keep you happy where you are. I want a lot of the highlight reel.
Two things.
The highlight reel is completely removed from reality. The highlight reel doesn’t show the transitions: that leading into the best fireworks ever was a bunch of grumpy, that the fun time at the pool yesterday started with a time out, or that our time at the beach ended with the news that a friend at church had died.
And real life isn’t a highlight reel.
It’s a roller coaster, it is twists and turns, really low lows and really high highs. And it is all on top of each other, the lows are so close to the highs so the highlight reel would be super choppy…so quick that we might miss them. And I think sometimes I do. I miss the highs, because I don’t identify them as highs and think that life is all about the lows.
Secondly, maybe I expect too much or better said, maybe I expect too much from other people. My satisfaction in life cannot come from other people. Not going to happen. People aren’t meant to fulfill my heart’s desires. I need to do more work here, spend time with the one who created me so that he can fill my heart.
Then I can release people to be people and free them from my expectations.
Then the highlight reel can be just the highlight reel and not what I base my life or my emotions on.
I am off to live a day which will be full of ups and downs, I am sure. But I am ready to be present, with managed expectations, to just live it.
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