#123: When the future you ordered doesn't arrive.
How releasing expectations led me to a life better than I could have predicted.
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"You know... it's nice to share."
Three-year-old Daniel stood at the foot of my chaise lounge, eyeing my painted parrot bookmark like it was the last cookie in the jar.
I'd been chatting with his parents about jet lag between London and this sun-drenched pool in Mexico when Daniel spotted the bookmark. Though still fuzzy from his nap, he'd locked onto it with the laser focus only toddlers possess.
"Just put your book out at night and the nice hotel ladies will put one in there," I offered. "That's how I got mine."
He wasn't buying the delayed gratification. His comment about sharing took me a second, but I had to admire the boldness. So I folded the corner of my page, handed over the parrot, and watched his face light up.
"Thank you!" He giggled and pitter-pattered away.
Kendall missed this interaction. She'd just headed back to our room along the jungle pathway.
"How old is your daughter?" Daniel's dad asked.
"Twenty. She wanted a spring break trip together."
"Hard to imagine that someday Daniel will want to vacation with us," he said. "Seeing you two gives us hope."
Just then Daniel came running back, midnight blue book in hand, parrot bookmark proudly peeking out. He held it up for inspection.
"Perfect!" I said, and he beamed.
I turned to his parents. "Our brains aren't wired to imagine most futures. But don't worry — good things are coming, whether you can picture them or not."
Sometimes I catch myself saying crap like that and think I should be wearing a turban with a crystal ball in my lap.
But I’m not trying to predict the future, for myself or for anyone else. I’m trying to do the exact opposite.
I’m trying to get us (myself included) to release our death grip on expecting, forecasting, and prognosticating.
Because it never turns out how we think.
Sometimes worse. Sometimes better. Sometimes sideways. But always a surprise.
Meanwhile, our brains run prediction software built from old data — what our parents did, what movies promised us, what society has proscribed as success. When reality delivers something different, we don't upgrade the software. We declare reality broken.
The irony? Our desperate grip on expectations doesn't protect us from disappointment. It guarantees it. And worse — it blinds us to the unexpected gifts waiting just outside our field of vision.
"You still have your person, but I don't have my person."
This same girl who's now wants to spend her spring break with me once said those words, her voice flat with truth.
She gravitated toward Mike. Connor gravitated toward me. When Mike died, she lost her person. I kept mine.
I didn't rush in with platitudes. She was right. All I said was, "Well, someday I hope I can be your person."
Nine years later, I am. After the pit of teenage despair, we're close in a way I never imagined possible. Not because I replaced Mike in her heart, but because we built something entirely new. Something that wouldn't exist if Mike were still alive.
Or would it?
That's just it — predicting isn't the point. Living into the plot twists is.
Dropping the scorecards (is it better? is it worse?) frees us to build with what we have instead of mourning what we don't.
For years after Mike died, people couldn't believe I was happy. They couldn't fathom my life as a widow being rich and vibrant. Full of women's summits, treehouse sunrises, global adventures, and deep conversations with total strangers.
But while I still long for Mike, I learned to stop longing for my old life. Today is too rich to waste energy looking backward.
I honor Mike by evolving, not by preserving us in formaldehyde. The real disrespect would be pretending I'm the same woman he left behind.
Here’s a few ways I’ve changed: I encourage swearing. I'm pro-laziness. I'm anti-squeegee.
All things that would've earned me The Look across the dinner table. But I think he'd prefer this authentic version of me to one fossilized in grief, endlessly performing what-would-Mike-approve-of calculations.
So instead of asking "What would Mike do?" I ask "What makes us thrive?"
Like beach vacations with Kendall where we talk for hours, asking questions, sharing laughter. Sleeping in twin beds we’ve smooshed so close together that she can tap my shoulder at night: "Mom, you're snoring, turn over." And laugh about it in the morning.
This unforeseen life has become my different kind of great.
All because I stopped trying to force what would bloom from the ashes. I just kept planting seeds, watering what grew, and trusting that life, given enough care and freedom, finds its way toward the light.
In the spirit of full disclosure:
I guard this "great" fiercely. This great where Kendall and I walk barefoot on warm sand, deepening our connection with every footstep.
I don't want anything to change…
But it will.
The kids will build careers, find partners, create families. My place in their lives will shift. There will be periods where I'm not as content.
And I'll adjust. Because as long as I don't let myself fossilize with “the way things should be”, different kinds of great will keep unfolding.
This isn't faith or hope or belief. It's just openness to possibility. It's knowing I've survived the darkest of times and now live in brightness I never could have predicted.
We spend our lives trying to forecast tomorrow, as if predicting it will somehow protect us from it. But the real magic happens when we put down the crystal ball and look up at what's actually unfolding right in front of us.
In possibility,
I like what you wrote” we declare reality broken” !!!!!
So true