A K-Mart Life

Last spring we were in Hilton Head and while we were there we made a trip to Fresh Market. Have you ever been there? It's a gourmet grocery store with funky items and tons of fresh-made goodies. It's amazing how much I love it considering how much I hate to cook. I think it's the bakery. Fresh baked pies and cakes and breads and cookies - yum!

Emma and I stood looking at all of the exotic oils and dressings with their beautiful labels and un-prounouncable names. I picked one off the shelf and said to her, "I want to live a Fresh Market life, Emma, but I fear that I live a K-Mart life."

I think it was about one of the saddest things I've ever said.

When I imagined my adult life during my teen and twenties I thought it would be beautiful. I thought I would be surrounded by beautiful things and that I would be spending my days doing things I loved - a job I enjoyed, a home that reflected my tastes, a family emotionally intact.

None of those things have come true, I'm afraid, and I'm absolutely miserable about it.

Some of it falls squarely on my shoulders, but some of it...does not. Life has a way of nudging and elbowing its will upon you until you sometimes don't even recognize it as yours anymore.

In many ways, I feel like I've given up. Like I'm simply too exhausted to fight it. Somewhere along the way I just...surrendered. Pure resignation. This is just how it is, I say to myself. None of us have the life we wanted. The one we dreamed of.

But for some people, what has happened instead is MORE than they could have ever hoped for in ways that they never imagined.

But..for some of us...it's just a disappointment.

"Expectation is the root of all heartache." said William Shakespeare. Man, no wonder he's famous for his writing. No one ever nailed it better. Such a simple concept yet lost on so many.

These days I'm working on lowering my expectations - of people, of life, of God, of my marriage. But I'll be honest, it feels so very sad to me.  To strive to accept a K-Mart life when I so desperately wanted the Fresh Market life.

Disappointment sucks.