Heather's Theory of Expectation

**Disclaimer: Not as good or complex as Einstein's Theory of Relativity**

Very recently, I did something I had put off for many years. (Not really going to go into what so try to follow the talking in code here.) When the idea was first presented to me, 6 years ago, I decided that I was pretty sure what the outcome would be and it was something I just didn't want to deal with at the time so nothing was done. Just last week, this thing was finally done only to discover that what I had been so afraid of for 6 years wasn't actually there. Don't you love how life works like that?

All of this has gotten me thinking about expecation and how we can sometimes mess ourselves up letting our expectations of things get ahead of reality. Being that I am a huge planner, type A (okay, fine, anal) type person, I am guilty of this quite often. When the kids were younger and we would go grocery shopping if someone had a tantrum midway through the store, that kind of thing would completely throw me for a loop. I expected to get through my grocery shopping rather than hauling a screaming toddler out of the store.

When we first found out Drew had special needs and that life for him was going to be a lot of therapies and a lot of unknowns, it was really hard for me to sort of say goodbye to what I expected his future to be. All those things, college, marriage, independent living now became big question marks. I would be lying if I said it wasn't hard for me to let go of some of that. However, 10 years into this, I can honestly say that there is some freedom in letting go of what we expect to be or to happen and to just live in the moment.

There is this quote I read once by Mark Twain that said something like most of the worries he had in his life never actually happened. I guess it is just human nature to get ahead of ourselves sometimes. Last week's event has reminded me to be a bit more open minded.