Expectations.

This new year didn’t begin quite how I expected it to. When the clock turned midnight on December 31st, I danced in the New Year with good friends, with such a hopeful expectation for all this new year would bring. But, I really didn’t expect to end up in a brace and on crutches just a week in.

2018 was a rough one, for many people. But, as I have said before, I really believe and feel within myself, that this past year was a year of foundation laying. It shook up the soul in a way that propels us forward to pursue what we want, who we actually desire to be, and to live in a deep settledness instead of all that frenetic running around internally and externally.

I’ve always wrestled with my expectations, towards myself and for what the world has to offer. These expectations come from my ideals, and it’s both a blessing and curse. I’m an idealist, a romantic and an old soul — a recipe for great imagination and passion, with a side of tremendous disappointment and heartache, if not tempered.

This past week I discovered that I most likely tore my ACL; news I didn’t really anticipate or want to hear. I have been limited to staying mostly in my apartment with the exception of small outings to my little neighbourhood cafe, and trying to not get too stuck in my head (a very real temptation for us introverts!). But, as I sat in my little nook this morning, these words came to me:

“Expectation and Expectancy are different. Your expectations may be shattered, but your expectancy is eternal; untouchable”.

That small little truth gave me a glimpse of hope I haven’t felt really all week. But I really think it’s true. I am not going to lie, the last 48hrs have been really shitty. Almost every insecurity has crept up from the basement and into my living room of existence, and has dwelt there for way too long. I have felt very small, lonely, and weak. But there is this small part of me, I am guessing the eternal part of me, that is determined to let go of my expectations of what I thought this year or next few months were going to look like, and remain open and spacious to this expectancy in the seat of my soul.

I have resolved in myself, that I want to cultivate a sense of expectancy in myself for all this new year might have for me, without clinging to my ideals or ideas of what it ought to look like. The beauty of the eternal truth, that there is Goodness and Love far bigger than our own personal worlds is that everything that happens to us, does not have to be lost to despair. Invitation is always there. An invitation to be opened to a greater love, a greater compassion and greater sense of Self.

I don’t know what all of this will look like, and I would be a fool to think that just because I do believe there will be beauty from this somewhere (insert your own struggle here), that there won’t be days where it will just suck. Because it will.

But, if I have learnt anything already, it is this: Friends and family have quite literally been the hands and flesh of God to me. There are doctors and specialists who care enough to make you a priority when really you are no more important than their next patient. And that not everything can be taken from us. That there is a treasure inside each of us that is untouchable, that is eternal, and that always carries hope.

Whatever spirit and headspace you find yourself in as you’ve entered this new year, may your expectancy for mystery be ever greater than your expectations, and may you begin to touch that small but powerful part of your inner being that is eternally beautiful, good and full of strength.