I'm slowly learning that we expect everything to go one way. I expect to get 12 reps of squats in this 1:00 minute, or I expect that I will be able to take care of a full time job and a child, or I expect that this coffee is not going to be so hot that it burns my mouth. Well, when those expectations are not correct... we have to make decisions. Do we lower the weight on that bar? Do we work part time? Do we take another sip? There's two areas specifically that I find hard to cope with when my expectations have failed me and now I have to make the decisions.
Growing up I now know I had a true pleasure having my mom stay at home and my dad be home a lot, or us be able to go to work with him. I thought that was a marriage. Of course I knew a lot of moms had to work to help support the family, but I didn't know some marriages are how mine is. I went in to marriage thinking I would work, he would work, I would see him after work, weekends, he'll work 9 hours a day and so will I, we can go on vacations and take long weekends, and have fun holidays. No... that's now how my marriage is. It's almost the opposite; and let me tell you, since it started I've pushed my mental boundaries trying to accept and not fight this reality. I'm quite a head strong person, and I become infuriated when I know who is being irrational and I can't handle the issue, I have to sit back and watch them be irrational. In our lives, there are no long weekends, there are no happy holidays, and there aren't any 9 hour days. There's 14 hour days, and ruined weekend plans by being called in, and sub $2 an hour wages. If you asked me have I thought to myself "this isn't the life I want or would have chose" I would scream yes. I didn't want this life, and I don't want this life. This is the hardest thing to bang my self into submission to do. I also am a planner, so when I hear someone of supposed high importance tell me something, I believe it and plan from that. Then when the plans go differently, I have to really stop and take a breath. So my marriage is the farther thing from what my expectation for it was and is. Now I have to decide how to react to that truth.
The second hard reality vs. expectation is a puppy. I've had puppies, but I also had a mom to took care of those puppies. I thought puppies were cute, and fun and easy. Well... that expectation was blown wide open with the purchase of our pit sky. They suck. They wine, they don't sleep through the night, they pee and poop all over, they get sick and are expensive, they should be trained, and everything else I can't think of. So now that my expectation is sadly wrong, we have to decide what to do with that puppy. Do we keep waking up at night to handle it, do we sleep oddly to accommodate it, do we yell at it more or praise it more or what.
I think hard and long about these things daily.
