this past weekend, i was jolted with what felt like a blinding flash of clarity. it felt like a miracle, which makes sense, because i read somewhere that a miracle is really a shift in perspective, and my perspective shifted in that one moment.

i realized that i have all these assumptions and expectations – conscious and unconscious, spoken and unspoken – about EVERYTHING. and i realized how i make myself and everyone else wrong for not meeting them.

it sounds so silly when i say it because of course i do. it’s not like i haven’t heard this before. i’m pretty sure this is one of those foundational bits of wisdom.

but oh my gosh, i get it now, in my bones get it, and getting it feels like nothing i’ve ever imagined.

i feel like a little kid. everything is so new and fascinating.

take a phone call, for instance. i call someone, and then apparently i assume that they will call me back. but why? did i tell them to call? and even if i did tell them to call, why does telling them to call make me assume that they will call? i never had a conversation with them where i said “if i tell you to call me, can you agree to call me back? if yes, does this apply to every single instance? are there exceptions? what about a timeframe?”

or take a hello. i say hello. and then i expect the other person to say something back. but why? also, it is clear that i think that some answers are acceptable and some are not. why is that? and why do i feel rejected if they don’t say anything? they might have assumptions and expectations for the exact same situation that are completely different from mine.

and this applies to everything!

it was like everything melted away in that one moment and all i was left with was love. i wanted to call everyone in my life and tell them how sorry i was for all the ways i made them wrong. when i think about it, it seems a wonder we function at all. we’re all just bumbling along, doing the very best we can, and there’s no way we can know everyone else’s assumptions and expectations when we aren’t even aware of our own.

i feel like slightly future me, who always annoyed me with her zen-like outlook on life.

of course, life being life, i can feel the newness and wonder of this fading. but the thing i have noticed is that i am left with a very clear witness, at least related to expectations and assumptions. as soon as i do something, she points them out to me. often, once i am aware of them, they fall gently away. it is so freeing. i hope it lasts for a while.