the “twangs” of expectations…

Today I felt very twanged…but it did not overpower me. Perhaps I should explain?

During our training we learned one of the things that makes transition difficult is when your expectations do not meet up with reality. For example when you expect a certain gift for your birthday and you don’t receive it…you feel a “twang” because the reality doesn’t align with what you expected. The farther the reality is from your expectation the harder the “twang” (like pulling a rubber band back and letting it hit you).

We do our best to align our expectations up with reality so that doesn’t occur but when we encounter the “twangs” of discorded  between reality and expectation it can be good to recognize that is what is causing the emotion within us that is yelling, “ouch” or feeling “sad” or giving us the sensation of being wronged.

So back to the “twang”. Tomorrow is D-man’s first birthday and my expectation (that I place upon myself) is that I will celebrate all that his one year of life has meant to me by showing him love in the way I love to, creating gifts, and cake for him. The reality is that we are living in a dorm with no kitchen and the are leaving in one month to a place where we can add no extra weight in the form of gifts. J- and I were walking through walmart thinking of how to celebrate D-man in those restrictions and I felt overwhelmed and wanted to cry. The blessing came when I realized what I was experiencing and was able to put a word to it that both J– and I could understand. As we walked I was able to articulate my twang, my expectation of how I wanted to love could not be aligned with reality and it hurt. I was able to process and then pray, and plead for a release of my expectation so that I could relish in the reality that tomorrow will bring. A day to celebrate my D-man for who He is, not with homemade cake, gifts and extended family but a celebration full of just as much love as if all those elements were present.

Tonight I am grateful for the twang for the way it reminds me to surrender my life anew to the one who made me and the vocabulary to place into words a cry out to the one who cares about our twangs and loves us through them.