Unexpected-spectations

When I woke up this morning, I felt like I had been awakened by someone tapping me on the shoulder telling me I had to do something. So I woke up, made an awesome cup of tea. Drank some oj and ate my cereal--typical morning things. Sat down to write, but nothing came. That tapping finger feeling made me feel like I was expected, expected to know what to do, yet it was so very unexpected. 

I stared at the cursor, then I remembered the awesome Chaco sandals I bought. I put them on my feet and threw away the box. But, unexpectedly I flipped through the catalog and actually paid attention to the text. To my surprise I found 2 amazing little vinyettes about 2 amazing people doing really amazing things. I hate the word amazing, but this is the truest way to describe how I felt. 

I logged into their sites. www.bendinggrass.com, and www.wildernessclassroom.com.  And immediately knew what the tapping finger feeling was all about. "Hey Anne, it's time to wake up now." The wake up was literal, but there is some metaphorical truth to it as well. 

"Wake up. This is your life. Go after the pounding in your heart. Dig into the energy. They too were like you, and they went after that pounding in their heart, that crazy psycho feeling of wanting to do crazy psycho things that other people think you should never do. Stop listening to the crazies. Wake up."

Expectations of who I am and what I'm supposed to do have done some really crazy things to me. And, to be quite honest I don't like what they've done to me. More often then not expectations have led me to the unexpected and left me like a pile of poop out of a jackass. And grant it the unexpected have put me face down in my own poo to realize some really awesome stuff. But it's when the unexpected are preceded by expectations that I have a really really hard time pulling myself up by the bootstraps. 

Therefore, the unexpected-spectations are the best, the most beautiful, and the hardest bestest lessons life can hand you.  So, this morning after I woke up, I woke up to the fact that I have no idea why my heart pounds and my eyes feel ten-times wider when I read about the stories of women and men who dive into the ocean rather than taking the boat. All I know is that I want to swim too. I want to feel the water rather than fear it. 

The boat is an expectation of safety. But really the boat faces just as much unexpected as the swimmer. The swimmer needs to trust her strength, needs to use her own instincts, it is just her and nature. She doesn't expect anything more than that hope to be able to keep swimming and the hope to not be eaten by a shark. 

This metaphor has holes, but what I'm trying to say is that when we stop expecting to be happy, to know what to do, to find that man or woman of our dreams, to win the race, well then we'll always be thankful for what we have right now. Life is a surprise.

Start swimming. Take that longboard with when the waves get big. Let go of the GPS system and let that heart of yours direct. Staying on the boat is mistaken security--you still may drown. Yes there may be more risks swimming, but at least you'll have learned your true strength, your possibilities, and you'll go place you never would have gone internally and externally. 

You'll never be ready for it. There's never a guidebook of how to prepare for things, you just have to go through them. Failure does not exist, your expectations are the only things that will tell you to feel like shit when things don't pan out the way you "expect." 

Live. It's ok to be afraid, that means you've got the energy to get through it. Fear often tells you what direction you need to go so long as you have courage to let it direct you smack into it. I need to tell myself that every day.