Expect the Unexpected...

Ummmm, how can I do that?

I mean if I expect it, then it is no longer unexpected...

Everything I am getting from my horoscope lately is all about this idea that things are drastically changing for me and mostly in the area of relationships.  After the last 4 years, I am like, “Holy Shit!  What the fuck else is going to change!”  But I kind of feel it coming, if I am honest.

I would love to think that some amazingly wonderful connection with a man is on the horizon, but I am in a place where I think I am not only losing hope, but also, the desire.  I am pretty happy alone, and yes, there are times when I get lonely, but those times are less and less frequent and now appear to be fleeting.

So I am to expect the unexpected...but is anything really unexpected, even the unexpected?

We all know that disease, death, financial gains and losses come for all of us.  None of us are getting out of here alive.  People cheat and lie and steal and horrible things happen to us sentient beings despite a very strong survival instinct.  And to leave the morbid behind for a minute, wonderful things happen too:  children are born, children get married and launch careers, we move, we fall in love, we gain freedom in areas of our lives in which that feeling of joy was not possible before.  There are quite a lot of good things that come our way too.  But are any of them, really, unexpected?

I think of all the change in my life in the last four years:

The wholesale reworking of all my most intimate relationships...I really didn’t see that coming, but I am very happy it did.

My job ending - saw it and wanted that so much but was trying to get things in order to leave well.

My dad dying - the end came quickly but we saw the decline for years so really couldn’t say it was unexpected.

Empty nest - I have been praying for it and dreading it for at least a decade, so again, not unexpected.

I think the thing that has been unexpected about all of the above is how I have felt about all the things.  There have been some giant blessings in all of that loss and heartbreak.  So many good things have come from the endings and freeing up of my time and energy from something that was not serving me, to allow for something better to come along.

The other thing that has happened that I did not expect was that I would have such a hard time with it all.  I am a deep thinker but a relational surface dweller.  I have only a few deep connections, preferring to stay more top level with most people.  I do not do intimacy well, and for the most part, have a boundaried wall up with most people.  So I guess I didn’t expect to feel sad, depressed, lonely, hurt, used, lost and sometimes, despondent when all of the above shit hit the fan...

And this tracks...

My feelings have always felt like they come out of left field.  Like I am just over here living life with lifey stuff happening as it is want to do, and I am always surprised at how things land with me.  How much things pain me, hurt me, bring me up short...I don’t know why I always seem to expect that I will just handle the slings and arrows of life and come out unscathed.  But I do.

The last four years there has been a lot of scathing.  And it has required me to dig deeper and deal with stuff in ways that I have not before.  And I am mostly grateful for the dig down.  But also, it has been exhausting...especially the last six months.  Having a great deal of time on your hands to do a lot of thinking is not always a good thing.

Which leads me to the other unexpected piece of information that has landed for me:  I do not know what to do with myself.  I didn’t see this coming either.  I mean who am I now?  I am fatherless.  I am childless (I mean on the day to day - my kids aren’t far but the daily chore of mothering is over), I am jobless.  This all leaves me with oodles of time to do whatever I want (I mean within reason given financial and physical limitations).  And I haven’t quite figured that out yet.  There have been long stretches of time where I just zoned out on the couch eating ice cream and binge watching something.  I think it is called rotting but it didn’t feel like rotting, instead, it felt most like gestation.  I was being idle because growth is coming in hot.

Sometimes stillness, boredom, feelings of loss and uselessness must come in for something new to happen.  A good friend pointed out that I am not supposed to know how to do all I am being asked to do right now because I have never been here before....I have never been an empty nester, I have never been fatherless, I have never been jobless...this is all new and uncharted territory for me...

And as with most things, I have a wide array of feelings about it all.  I am not sure what I expected to feel, but it wasn’t this...

So I try to take each day as it comes and allow whatever I feel to just come and land and be ok.  To not get all upset about the highs and lows.  To just be comfortable and easy going regardless of how it feels.  Sometimes I can do it and other times I cannot.  I am not spending a lot of time trying to expect the unexpected, I mean how can I?  Life is supposed to not show you its hand...and that is a good thing really. I mean how shitty would life be if we all knew what was going to happen for the rest of our lives...spoiler alert!  Whether it was amazing or awful, how much would we lose our sense of wonder and joy if we knew exactly how the rest of our lives was going to play out?

So I am ready to move forward, to be as present as I can and to just allow each day to come and know that I am blessed to have the day I am in...not everyone is so lucky to be here, with relative good health, a host of friends, the love and support of my family and have enough money to keep the whole show going for another day...

Again, still...