Misplaced Expectations

We’re having a heat wave. The thermometer has been registering 100 degrees for the last three days which is perfect weather to descend to the basement and work on clearing out the clutter. It’s cool and dark down there and I'm finding stuff I haven't seen in years. Jack has been going a little stir-crazy since he has been confined to three rooms in the house which have air conditioning. Sunday night he was literally running laps around the living room so I took him over to South Beach for a little diversion. When we got there it was 7pm and about 95 degrees. I set him loose on the sand after strolling the boardwalk for a while. He approached the water with some trepidation but I eventually had to dunk his hands and feet because he kept trying to suck his thumb which was full of sand. Whether or not washing his hands in Raritan Bay actually cleaned them is debatable. Even so, it was a nice way to end the week-end.

Speaking of the week-end this one was full of activity. Friday night we drove out to Erin’s place, Saturday it was off to Great Neck to measure the rooms in the apartment, then out east to her mom’s place in Mount Sinai and finally further east to Riverhead for a party. I never seem to get any sleep on the week-ends any more, but I suppose that is to be expected. I have been reading a blog lately which is written by a young widow and single mother of twins under the age of two, god bless her. She recently posted an entry which dealt with, among other issues, the concept of “misplaced expectations”. You know, that vision you have in your mind about the way you expect an event or circumstance to turn out which, often as not, turns out completely differently? I can relate. I remember when Jack was less than six months old I consistently scheduled far more activities than he or I were capable of doing in a day and would get frustrated when I was lucky to even get out of the house before noon. For a while this bothered me, but I have learned to replace the ire of dealing with frustrated expectations with the meditative practice of no expectations. After all, I can’t really control how my son is going to behave, or feel, or how much he is capable of doing on a particular day. The only thing I can control is my reaction to the circumstances. Trying to force my vision of how the day is “supposed” to go onto his behavior is a guaranteed recipe for frayed nerves and a cranky boy. I have learned through trial and error, mostly error, that it is much better to let go. Accept that there are limitations on what I can accomplish and that as much as I’d like it to, willing things to go my way aren’t going to make them happen. Jack has been my mini Zen master, teaching me acceptance and nonattachment just by being himself.