Longest Expectations

Fried eggs with a dollop of fresh guacamole and an entire English cucumber sliced up next to them could not and would not have been passed off as dinner when my kids were all home and there was a dad floating around the house. French toast, which we called ‘breakfast for dinner’, maybe but the singular need for routine and recognizable food groups that included pasta and meat and traditional presentations of veggies was the rule of the day. My youngest son recently reminded me I baked a lot of meatloaf.

A current news article presented the truth that 1 in 7 Americans now happily chooses to live alone. I’m one of those, although when I read about the guy on Mercer Island who is an independent engineer who works six months and travels six months and is looking for a life partner, I started thinking about reconfiguring my life.

Whoops! I just did it again. Three times in the last month I have made the mistake of mentioning that I am looking to date again. A single older woman can’t do that. Especially to people who have been partnered a long time. They have silenced their radar and so they hear anyone talking about exploring the great outdoors – outdoors of their partnership—as a brazen hussy. So… forget I ever mentioned my social life except….take with you in your brain as you read this column the idea of putting your stuff onto someone else.

For example, I don’t expect my happily or contentedly or routinely partnered and married friends to go out in situations where there might be an encounter with, in my case, the opposite sex that would end up in a date. I also don’t expect them to desert their own family obligations to enjoy a social activity with me either. I recognize they have a different routine.

They are most likely not coming home and grabbing a bag of pita chips and hummus and calling it dinner. I frequently do. They are not looking at their weekly hours of activities as anything other than managing and caring for others and their needs. My job is about caring for others, but the cats take about two hours a week. Other than that, my constant quest is how to find more time to write more words in more genres.

Recently I wandered into the ‘What Does Vashon Want’ meeting. The first one, the one in the O Space. I thought to myself finally all the various groups were going to get together and have a conversation. I expected to see all the arts and education and faith community groups I hang out with mingling with the business people and the civic people and the commuters who have no time to belong to any group except the ones that lift their hearts from the weary load of travel.

Wrong. I had the wrong expectation. Happily all the people there were those I had read about as having, just this side of, a major brawl moving about the room chatting in small groups and writing on big pieces of paper, finding consensus under the aerial ropes in a place big enough to give the feeling it could handle dissent.

My friend and I chose to use the time to discuss a situation that was heavy on our spirits about a segment of our personal lives. It was easier to talk about it huddled on a well-worn couch that sank too deep amidst the laughter and light chatter of people discussing water issues and ferry rights. The two of us had new expectations about what we wanted for a certain part of our life. Hmmm expectations.

I’ve come to observe that what truly gets us into trouble on this Island is our expectations. We are constantly caught up in the diversity of expectations. The facts and figures of our diversity we welcome and hold up as a paragon of virtue. But the expectations those facts and figures bring cause us to stumble, resent, or work at cross-purposes with each other.

The other factor that gets in our way of unity or consensus is our longings. Whether we voice them or carry them silently in our hearts, that which we long for causes us to look beyond the present and see those who stand in the way as an encumbrance.

What’s the way towards peace? We just have to do what they did at that meeting. We have to talk about our longings and clarify our expectations. All the work that gets done before that as we, ourselves come to grips with that which resides within us is ours to do. We need to do our inner work. We add nothing to the universe if we are not internally defined.

What are you longing for? What do you expect? Two of the best questions ever. Fun to ask, even more fun to answer. Second step … sharing your answers.

Love,
Deborah