Unexpectations

Maybe life is just a constant journey with the unexpected...or maybe that´s just my life...

Everyday starts off pretty much the same where we usually wake up in our beds, groggy and begrudgingly get out of bed.  Then work or school or whatever our routine.  But periodically we get things thrown our way that are difficult or fun or awesome or challenging or all four things together.  We also tend to form opinions of people based on the roles they play in our lives and it´s hard sometimes for people to break out of our views of them or the roles we set up for them.  I´ve found from traveling that having expectation and pretensions only limit me and limit those that I know and what I can experience.  My guatemom, for example, at first she was nice, protective, and welcoming and now she´s somewhat combative and deceptive.  What I had come to expect became misaligned with reality.  But then at other times there are people or situations that you don´t expect much of and they pleasantly surprise you.  Like today where my computer just decided it had had enough of work (I feel like this sometimes too but I keep going) and died my first hour into working.  I trust my Spanish language skills but only so far.  I can get a computer on my own but I don´t really know what I´m doing.  I kind of don´t know what I´m doing buying a computer in the states where I speak English.  Feeling lost and anxious, I had a friend who just offered to help me, not a person I would have thought of or even called.

We live life and through our experiences we build impressions of who we think people are and how they´re supposed to behave, even if we don´t intend to do it.  When I meet people, without intending to, I put them into categories.  My past experiences have decided how I view the present and sometimes I can´t see situations or people clearly.  Everyone is limited by their past, but our past is how we learn and how grow.  It reminds me of a line (TRITE MUSIC LYRIC ALERT!!!!!!  BEWARE!!!!!)  from a Jackson Browne song, ´´And while the future's there for anyone to change, still you know it's seems it would be easier sometimes to change the past.´´  We think about our past and it lives in us.  Our past is something set, defined, but our future is amorphous and open.  With something already accomplished and complete, we can analyze and pick it apart.  But with our future, all we can do is guess.  Our past forms what we think for much of the future.

Living here in Guatemala, I live in the present.  I don´t really think about what´s happening in my life now or analyze it or be reflective.  I only live it.  I just go with how things are and do not have expectations about my life in Guatemala.  But I have been thinking more and more about my past from when I was a teenager and younger.  It has began to haunt me a bit.  It´s weird how your life changes and certain places or situations change your thinking or behavior.  We can expect to be a certain way in our lives or we can expect certain people to behave a certain way, but what has tended to end up happening is the unexpected and people surprising you.