mulberryshoots

What did we expect with our lives? Are you one of those who had no idea what you wanted to be or do when you were little? I’ll bet most people didn’t. Many of us are still trying things out and figuring out who we want to be. It doesn’t end.

Or maybe if we didn’t know what we wanted to do, we at least had an idea of how we wanted to live later in life after working hard at doing either what we wanted or what we had to do to get our kids grown up, educated, married and settled in their own places, with or without mortgages of their own. Or, if we didn’t have kids or didn’t have a career, we still wanted something in the end, didn’t we? Our own house with a white picket fence, or a trip to a land we’d always wanted to visit?. . . a certain model car, a boat, or even a horse?

I always wanted a piano. A Steinway, if you must know. And a big Steinway grand piano, only in black ebony. His name is Victor: my beautiful, seven-foot long Steinway grand piano, built originally about 1917, during what’s known as the Lechitizsky era. Did you know that there were vintage years for pianos built by Steinway as there are for fine wines? The wood, the laborers, the techniques, the parts all made the parcel to be different depending upon when it was built by Steinway and Sons.

But that’s an inanimate wish come true. I also wanted to have a home of my own where I could cook, read, write, knit and clean the house and make it warm and cozy, decorated the way that I liked most–with simple country things and serviceable furniture. Not too elaborate. I often said that I could make a room of my own even if I were set down in Afghanistan. But that was before our country decided to fight a war there. I do think that I could make a home for myself just about anywhere because I have a way of making a life for myself. A few implements, a pot and a pan. “Whatever,” as people like to say these days.

What I think my lonely heart wanted the most, though, was companionship. Not that I haven’t been alone nor known how to be alone. But someone whom I felt wanted to also be with me. When you get to be a certain age, you sometimes think about losing that person. Because one day, perhaps still a ways off, that will happen to one of us.

That’s why I take a look at my expectations for each day. And to think about whether it’s important to raise an old issue that is full of barbs. Or to notice that perhaps I should have no expectations at all. Nor any day afterwards either.

(I was just thinking, while reading this over, that I could have named this post, “fulfillment” just as well. . .)