Date: May 24th, 2007

May 23, 2007

Expect the unexpected

I’m sure y’all have noticed just how very introspective I can be about things. Like “Oh, let me think really hard about life and then write about it in dreadfully boring detail for the internet, because obviously they have never experienced a thing”. God. I’d probably hate me too or at least give me a firm wallop to the baby maker for being all ‘thoughtful’ and inquisitive all the freaking time. The point is that while I’m not particularly fond of my life all the time, I love to hear and read about how others deal with the little things that just pop up. The minor things, like how one goes through life making friends and expecting those friends to be there forever. I have had my share of ‘Best Friend’ necklaces and now am truly unable to recall what happened to those friends, much like Ripe for Reading:

What binds us to friends of past and why is it that one feels guilt when the emotion is not truly genuine any more? That talking becomes a chore, that laughing becomes forced? What is it that changes the friends you once used to know and laugh easily with? How can a sacred bond of closeness float away?

When you’re young you carry some sort of assuredness that things are always going to be one way and etched in stone. Of course you become adult and realize that holy hell, things could not be more opposite but you still try to live your life to the best of your ability. Then poof one day a little hiccup, possibly by way of biology, and you are the proud owner of your very own resource sucker, like Dave for instance:

One day, biology was good to us and voilá, we had our girl. Don't misunderstand, we're darn lucky to have her; she's a gift, a funny, happy go lucky gift. She is also as resource intensive as a Hummer H1 (the big one).

Now don’t get me wrong, of all of life’s little hiccups, children aren’t necessarily a bad thing. I happen to like and enjoy other people’s children depending on the circumstances. There are just a lot of caveats that we won’t get into. Regardless I was always one who said that I would never have children. More of that set in stone bullshit and well I might as well have signed up for that tubal ligation at the tender age of 12. The whole basis of this was well what if I turned out to be like my mother. Or worse yet! What if MY CHILD turns out to be like my mother:

Just let that ruminate. My daughter looks like my mother in law and acts like my mother. Except now she can speak! No more furrowing. No more pursing. Now, her judgments are articulated. It's as if I have my miniature mother in my ear all the time.

I’m sure there were other reasons like, though “what if my child’s pediatrician is so blindingly hot that I am unable to go to an appointment without drooling or staring at his luscious locks?”:

Lest I remind you of my occupation for the past 8 years. I was generously compensated by a pharmaceutical company to do what? Oh, that’s right -TO CONVERSE WITH DOCTORS. I am the queen of talking to physicians! This gal can walk the walk and talk the talk with the most analytical and socially inept of all physicians. That is, unless said physician has McDreamy hair. Then, apparently, all bets are off.

So to cease with the rambling the point is that we don’t expect things to happen. We fall out of that stride of everything being just chill and good once we reach adolescence and Sarah is no longer a friend do to some incident during an Earth Science lab. That’s when we start realizing that nothing is etched in stone, it’s more like the best quick sand on earth, and thus we turn cynical and possibly pessimistic; we don’t expect for the good things to happen anymore, because life lesson (and hours of annoying introspection) have possibly taught us otherwise as Brainy Jane suspects:

The term ” I don’t expect…” has become a staple in our verbal diet. As in “I don’t expect him to call”, ” I don’t expect anyone to understand”, ” I can’t expect you to help..”. These tiny little sentences are cropping up like weeds and it’s ruining the view.

The thing is though, that everything, everyday actually has the possibility to become new and exciting. And even if we don’t necessarily expect for anything to happen anymore, there’s really no harm in trying.