SOC: Spinster for Life? Nah.

That's me, age 2! Always dressing for a special occasion.

Even as a child, I use to think about what my future family was going to look like.  When I met new families, I would reflect on which of their traits I wanted my family to have.  Later in high school and college, I thought in more depth about the kind of life I’d like to have with my husband and children.  How many we’d have.  The sports we’d play.  The vacations we could take.

I sometimes felt desperate to know how everything was going to turn out.  Sometimes, I felt doomed to live a spinster life because there was to perfect match for me.

And then one day, I got engaged (literally we went from friends to engaged), and I suddenly felt silly for being so …desperate.  I said to myself, “I can’t believe it’s actually here.  Now I know who that person is going to be.”  So I began fantasizing about how great our married life was going to be…

I did eventually learn my lesson that creating expectations can actually ruin an event, a relationship, or a career.  My first year of marriage was tough, because I was so busy rebuking the expectations I had wildly created.  I had to slow down and look at how my relationship with my husband was really developing, not how I assumed it would.

That’s when I learned the most important key to a good relationship:  acceptance.

Once I began accepting him for him, me for me, and us for us, our marriage flourished!  In fact, it’s turned into a better relationship full of more opportunities than I could have even fantasized on my own.

You may be feeling desperate like I did for something to happen. Or you might already be chugging along on your “plan”.  Stop and think for a minute about the relationships you have.  Are you really accepting those people?  Are you really loving your children for being their quirky selves?  Are you trying to upkeep an image you created before you had the information you do now?

Live in the moment.  Accept.  Be.

That's Milli, age 2. Fashion runs in the family.

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
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