Living at Peace With the Unexpected

October has been full of surprises around our house. And I’m discovering that while I might roll with the punches pretty well these days, I haven’t yet learned to live peacefully with the unexpected. As in, accepting that when life goes a little ape, certain things just don’t get done.

The laundry and dishes pile up, I order take-out more than usual, which means my budget takes a hit, which creates more problems I can’t really deal with at the moment. Then there is the underlying strain of the regular routine being interrupted, and if there happen to be any big unknowns lingering, well, I’m heading to bed right after finishing my phad thai.

About two weeks ago I had two surprise job interviews on the same day, and when I say “surprise”, I mean that I didn’t know I was showing up for an interview. I have a degree in Human Resource management and Organizational Behavior; being in an interview unprepared is an extremely stressful experience.

I’m still waiting to hear back about the job I’m holding out for, and there have been glitches with my writing flow and posting around here. I had wanted to write about finances this month, but as I got brainstorming and thinking and reading, I couldn’t actually get started. The truth is, finance makes sense to me. So understanding the confusion and hangups takes a bit of work. And the more I read and thought and false-started, the more I felt like I couldn’t stick my toe in the water without full-on jumping in the pool. The other day I finally had to accept that I just can’t post about finance this month. It needs a lot more thought, a lot more structure, and a lot more posts than I had in mind to tackle.

Thankfully, my dude is always reminding me that I am the only one who cares about such things. But when I don’t follow through on something I’ve said I’m going to do, I still feel like a bit of a failure. And as this has happened innumerable times in my life, I really hate revving up the old failure monster.

But some months (or weeks, or seasons) require letting go of expectations, be they real or perceived or imagined. Sometimes just doing my best to not drown in the rapids until the river reaches a calmer stretch where I can find the bottom and pull myself to shore is about the best I can manage. And once I do find my footing again, it takes me a while to reorient myself, to dry off, and to catch my breath. And, oh yeah, to eat something. Like potstickers.

I’m still learning this. I’ve been through enough seasons of the unexpected to know that it’s a part of life. It’s happening now and it will happen again. It might happen again next month. But even though I know all of this in my head, I haven’t peacefully accepted it in that deep internal way. In that way that lets me be okay with being a little dizzy and needing to sit and rest for a bit.

The good news for Project Grownup is that I’m in the middle of learning a lot about adult-world things I’m facing for the first time. No doubt I’ll be asking for your expertise and the Facebook Page in the days to come. (Please help a sister out as you’re able.)

Until then, can someone please pass the spring rolls?