Ready

For an introduction to Five Minute Friday, click here.

This week's one-word prompt is: Ready

Ready? 

GO.

Oh, I'm not ready to write a 5-minute blog post.  I've got a pretty terrible sinus headache this afternoon.  But I guess that's the point - we're never ready.  I've been doing a lot of introspection lately (apart from these 5-minute Fridays), and I'm realizing more and more that I am a planner, and I tend to end up with very set expectations (not necessarily high expectations, but just a pre-conceived notion in my mind of how something is going to go).  More often than not, obviously, things don't go according to plan.  Most of the time, that's a good thing!  I thought I'd join the Foreign Service, do two tours overseas, come back to the US when I was 29 and try to get married.  And instead I met Mike four months into the Foreign Service and now I'm 29 and we are married with a baby.  Or......we were really planning to go overseas again for our third tour, but ended up in DC, which turned out to be such a blessing with Caroline's colic.

So yes, when things don't go according to plan, it's usually a boon for us.  But sometimes when things don't go according to plan, it shakes me up.  I feel like I have to go through all the very intricate details about the future that I had organized in my mind and replace them one by one with reality.  With the reality I was unprepared for.  That I wasn't ready for.  Like trying to calm a screaming baby for 10 hours when I thought we would get lots of quiet, sweet cuddle time.

But now I'm trying to be ready for anything, and to just accept life in the moment, enjoy it if I can, and if not, just.....well, hang in there.  And know there will always be another moment in the future to get ready for, that won't be what I expect, but that maybe I can enjoy even more than I expected to enjoy the last moment.  Like seeing Caroline's face light up when she rode in a swing for the first time.  Biggest. Smile. Ever.

STOP.


I don't think the picture needs further explanation.