Expectations…

I am very good at expectations. I create timelines in my head for how things should happen, how quickly I should improve and what life should look like once I reach a certain point. Then life has the nerve to ignore my schedule.

I expected recovery from surgery to move faster. I expected some paintings to turn out better. I expected certain relationships to last. I expected that by this point in life I would have many things figured out.

Apparently expectations and reality have not been communicating.

Painting continues to teach me to loosen my grip on the outcome. I can control how I prepare the canvas. I can practice. I can choose the colors and make thoughtful decisions. But I cannot force every painting to become exactly what I imagined. Sometimes it becomes something different…and sometimes different is better.

I am trying to approach life that way too. There are goals I still want to reach. I want to complete my certification. I want to teach. I want to continue growing as an artist. But I also want to leave room for things I haven’t imagined yet.

The future doesn’t owe me the picture I created in my head. Maybe my job is simply to keep showing up, keep learning and see what develops on the canvas.