As It Is

“Expectations destroy our peace of mind, don’t they? They’re future disappointments planned out in advance.” –from A Place of Hiding by Elizabeth George

I remember when someone first mentioned the word autism in assessing my son. A few days later, as I was still trying to take that in, terrified about what it meant for my son and what it meant for me, feeling disoriented and desperate and in denial, a friend’s mother asked me, “So how do you feel about the fact that James won’t be going to Harvard?”

All these years later, I still marvel at her insensitivity. But that is not the point here. The point is that I did have expectations, perhaps not of Harvard, but of what life would be like for my son, what life would be like for me as his mother.
I did not relinquish those expectations without a fight. I fought for years. I fought for the hopes and dreams and fantasies I was so attached to that I couldn’t imagine what life would be like if I gave them up. I fought so hard to get away from what was real, that I caused a lot of unnecessary pain – to myself, to James, and to others.

On the outside, I was being a good advocate for James. I tried every possible therapy, took advantage of every special ed service, consulted with an array of experts, and read a library full of books. But on the inside I was simply trying to escape, to escape the pain of loving my child so fiercely and so helplessly. I was trying to make reality something other than what it was. In retrospect, I think my denial and my efforts to control something I couldn’t control caused me more suffering that the autism itself.

Expectations are not really bad. We do hope for things and anticipate things. We make goals and we strive to attain them. We expect certain outcomes to result from certain efforts. And when our expectations are disappointed, we are sad.

But then sometimes we increase and prolong our suffering because of our attachment to our expectations, our unwillingness to acknowledge that things did not turn out the way we wanted, our quickness to blame someone or something, our refusal to grieve and move on.

This year, I had expectations. I had plans and hopes and dreams and fantasies, all of which brought me considerable delight in anticipation. And then, in the blink of an eye, things changed. But this time I was better prepared. My first reaction was to remind myself that I didn’t know if this new direction was good or bad. My second reaction was to realize that it was neither. It simply was.

It is as it is
And as it is
Is as it should be

I went up to my cabin last weekend. I wrote a list of all my expectations that are now not going to happen. I described them in all the glowing perfection that only fantasies can have. And then I placed the paper in the fire and blessed them as they went up in smoke. I let them go. And turned to face a new beginning.

So when you feel all the endings coming ... begin looking for all the beginnings. –Ann Voskamp