Failed Expectations, Good Or Bad?

I know I was supposed to be impressed, and I guess I was, but there was no blood in this moon.  It was a typical lunar eclipse or at least it looked like that to my tired untrained eyes, with an equally tired dog wondering why we were up before she wanted to be up.

I expected something spectacular, something cosmically changing, life altering, either I waited to late to drag myself from bed or was too impatient to wait around for the amazing to happen, but I expected more. As I crawled back into bed, I thought to myself about expectations.

Things usually don’t turn out how I expect them to, hardly ever. This has made me seem like a negative person to some people, “Eeyore” has even been thrown around as a nickname. I don’t see it as being a negative person, but more as a defense mechanism. If I don’t expect a lot, then I’m not disappointed. This morning I was disappointed. I wanted to see this; it was what I was EXPECTING to see

And instead I saw this (not my picture, seriously, who remembers to bring a phone at that time of the morning)

While I do believe a lunar eclipse is not nothing, but I had, uncharacteristically, let myself get excited. Let’s face it since I closed the bakery, I haven’t used my alarm.  Yesterday I slept until 11:00 am, so setting my alarm meant it was important, meant it was exciting, meant I was looking forward to something. After coming back inside, I realized I hadn’t looked forward to anything in a long time, a really long time. I then wondered, do we all set our expectations too high? I’m sure some self-help guru will tell me that’s the difference between successful people and unsuccessful people, the difference between happy people and, well, us Eeyores of the world. But I would rather look at it this way, in my almost 48 years my heart has been disappointed.  Let down and broken more ways than I can describe.  So my lack of great expectations or even minor expectations is alright, I’ve got a little bit of my heart left, and I have to preserve it while I can. Now I know that sounds like classic Eeyore, but every once in a while my heart grows ten times and this week it did TWICE! I’m so very proud of my kids and the adults they turned into and this week was confirmation. They almost never disappoint me or fail my expectations (well there was that one incident with a BB gun and a neighbor’s picture window).   I look forward to hearing from them every day, they restore my “Eeyore” attitude even when they have no idea.

At 47, I’m still trying to figure “me” out, and I’m ok with that today. I have amazing, good, kind children. I have a husband who has made his life mission to making me happy (which I know is no easy task).   I have proved to myself that I can be thrown into just about any situation, with no experience and succeed (yes I am succeeding at bartending, I KNOW, SHOCKER!!).

So this morning as I sit on my couch, in my tiny apartment, with my coffee, my dog, and my husband, I’m happy that I was disappointed by the Blood Moon.  It made me realize all the good in my life and all that makes me happy.