Anticipation

I was thinking tonight that something that’s missing in my life is anticipation. Looking forward to something makes the experience even better for me.

I was trying to figure out why there’s not enough anticipation in my life. I have come up with a couple of answers, and I don’t like either one.

One answer is that I’m so busy with the day to day details of life that there’s not time to actually THINK about things that are coming up and plan for them. It’s that contemplation that adds to an occasion for me.

Maybe it’s one reason I love the Christmas season so much – I anticipate it all year long. And it never disappoints.

The other reason I’ve come up with for not anticipating is that I lead a blessed existence that has many wonderful surprises in it. A week ago I didn’t even know Bob Newhart was coming to town, much less that I’d get to see him. And I certainly love those surprises in life, but I think I need to temper them with other things too – planned things.

Planning is very difficult for me. It requires me to commit to a certain thing at a certain time and that’s always a struggle for me. I’m sure there’s a book for a psychiatrist in all that, but if I don’t have time to anticipate things, I don’t have time to write that book either.

One of the things I loved with my last boyfriend was that I could anticipate a visit from him. Unfortunately, if something happened and he couldn’t come on a particular weekend, I was very, very disappointed after anticipating it. So, it’s a mixed blessing. But, it was fun getting to think about seeing him and then the reality of getting to be with him.

I’m sure there’s more here to contemplate – why I don’t have enough “anticipation” in my life. It seems that I should. I must figure out how this works. It seems there’s always something to occupy my thought that’s “current” so there’s no time for anticipating the future.