I have to admit that I had a few nay-sayers when I added this goal to my list. “Expect less”—that just sounds negative, right? Well, I have recently realized that this kind of attitude helped me arrive at the point I am now, and I LOVE the point I am at!
I broke up with a now-ex in July. My heart wasn’t in it. I was confused, tired, frustrated. Shortly thereafter I got back in touch with someone from my past… an “old flame,” you might say? Someone I had met a couple of years ago and spent countless hours with… we realized we had a very special and deep connection. But we hadn’t really talked in a while (a year) except sporadically (it’s a long story; this is not the place).
ANYWAY
In no time, I realized that my heart had been with him the whole time. I had never let go of what we had together. Things between us blossomed and grew and progressed very naturally. I was happy. Really happy! I lived each day, excited about what would come and willing to accept whatever life had in store for the two of us. I had no grandiose plans for the future (near or far). I never forced him to place his feelings in a box, labeled with “friendship” or “love” or “I’m-not-sure.” I never asked him to make a public declaration about what we were doing together, who were were when we were out in public together. We just lived.
And it just happened.
One evening, we were having dinner at a restaurant where he used to work, and old co-workers kept stopping by our table to say hello to him. He also knew our server, and when she came over to our table for the first time, they spent a few minutes catching up, then she motioned to me and asked him, “So, is this your girlfriend?” And he looked at me and said, “Yes, yup. This is Abbie.”
We had never labeled ourselves this way before, but that night, it was all of the sudden very clear that that’s what was going on. That’s who we were. It just. made. sense. Everything fell into place.
He’s my soul mate, my other half, my partner in crime. And it didn’t happen because I forced it to, or expected it to. It happened because it was meant to be.
THIS is exactly what I meant when I added this goal to my list. Ludicrous expectations and the need to always have things boxed out and categorized were ruining my life, and my happiness. All I needed to do was learn to let things travel by themselves, at their own speeds. The past three months have been nothing but pure bliss, and I had nothing to do with it ;)
