I’m working on expectation management these days. That is a common term between the husband and I. When big things are coming, we try hard to sit down ahead of time and work out what the other person is thinking so we have a rough idea of what to expect when the poo inevitably hits the fan.

A funny example: Roughly four years ago, we were lying in the bed while I detailed to him at length exactly why I needed to change our entire bedroom decor when he was perfectly happy and comfortable  with it. Expectation Management: “Will you ever be done redecorating our spaces?” No. No I will not. So now he knows.

In this case though, it’s not the expectation of his behavior, but rather of my own emotions.

Moving is difficult, and sometimes awful, and for this girl who loves her friends hard, a time of grief. Of hope too, yes, and other good grace that God so lovingly provides, and I’ll eventually write about that (Parts Two and Three), but I’m in the goodbye stage, which is grief.

And so I build up all these last moments in a house of cards where my children behave and no one is sick or tired or overcommitted, I have plenty of time to get things done and the right words flow graciously at each goodbye. No ugly crying here, right?

Oh friends. It takes just one tiny puff of reality, one crashing second of chaos and real life, and the whole thing comes tumbling down in a pool of “I should have done this” and “I could have done that” and “I’m not finished here!!”

Life keeps right on with the time marching inexorably forward and the mundane to be lived and I blinked-I blinked and its three years gone and I haven’t said, or done, enough.

It never feels like enough.

Expectation management.

~M.

(Stay tuned for Parts Two and Three where I talk about moving out of our house, spiritual amnesia, rest for this weary mama, His loving mercies, and the dichotomy between material blessings and spiritual favor.)

Three years. I blinked. (These were taken July 2012).

From this … 

To this …. Never enough time and how fast it is flying!