I woke up late this morning, which is rare, VERY for me, to a beautiful coating on everything of a light snow. I was not expecting this. I also woke up to discover that I had forgotten to set my coffee maker last night. This was unexpected. Caroline Kennedy is in anguish this morning over the Tuesday death of her amazing daughter who had a rare form of blood cancer. Everyone knew she would die from this, and if you have not read Tatiana’s essay from November about her terminal diagnosis, you should. The sadness for this family was expected. And so it is the morning of the new year and I already know what my word for the year ahead shall be…expect.

You relaxed your rules about how you eat or exercise and now none of your pants fit, what did you expect? You swore you would get sober but continue to stop after work every day for two fireball shooters and now your stomach has ulcers and you can’t ever sleep through the night, what did you expect? You shopped way over your budget for Christmas and now you literally can’t pay your bills for January, what did you expect? You treated some customers rudely with hateful and racist comments and now your social media has blown up over it and you are going to go out of business, what did you expect? SO much of life is cause and effect, and so much of life is expectations or unexpected outcomes…it feels as if everything can be reduced to this simple thought…did you see THAT coming, or not?

You do your homework in a timely fashion and always hand it in on time and test extraordinarily well, and now all of your teachers are writing letters of recommendation to accompany your college applications, and you have been accepted into every university you have thus far applied to…what else would you have expected?? You are kind to everyone you meet and greet strangers and friends alike with a smile, you are gloriously well regarded in your community and at your job, and after a devastating house fire are the recipient of an enormous go-fund-me to help you through this tragic time…what else would you have expected?? The give and take of living…the push and the pull of existing in a world, a society, a town, or a family where many do not understand the basic premise that we are all connected. Some people are takers and users and abusers, and some people are givers and soothers and the most benevolent of humans…AND we have to coexist. AND sometimes we are on the good side and sometimes we are on the dark side, I guess we could call it that & we can’t all be good all of the time, and one would hope bad people have some goodness left in them…like dearest Yogi Kevin says, “you can’t be 100% 100% of the time” …but should we not at least try??? If we expect the best shouldn’t we try to be our best?

I have made some very bad decisions and questionable choices over many years and all of what has culminated in my life, that I literally do not like about my current situation, is absolutely to be, and was, expected…I knew better, but I did not DO better, and therefore, the university kind of said to me, “well fuck all the way off and get what you deserve for being stupid.” I accept that. Mea Culpa universe, I bow humbly before you. I acknowledge the error of my thoughts and of my ways. Everything that is wrong right now in my life is the result of my questionable decisions and very bad choices. How I move forward in the new year with the circumstances surrounding my existence is a question I can’t really answer, but I know I have to make some really sweeping changes in my behavior and my boundaries. I expect the best from myself but seldom if ever expect the best from others, and so it seems they give me the worst version of themselves all too often. This shall not do in the new year.

‘The way someone does anything is the way they do everything,’ is an expression I have heard and read, and the older I get the more I “get” it. If I see a carpenter who has his tools all in disorder in his truck and his extension cords are a mess and there is trash all over his back seat, I sum up the situation pretty quickly and I feel like it tells me all I need to know about him. Not judging, just observing. I went to the dollar store before Christmas for battery tea lights for my table and the manager walked over to the register and asked me to wait just a moment while he set up a different cashier and when he put down the cash drawer I exclaimed, “that cash drawer is horrendous, a mess, how can anyone work like that?!” as it was all in chaos with money facing different directions and some bills upside down, and I immediately called my mother to discuss, how a person keeps a cash drawer tells me all I need to know about a person, and she totally understood what I was saying, and I wasn’t judging him, I was just making an observation. When a client comes back to their beach house for Memorial Day weekend after having not been there since October and they open the pantry to see all the shelves cleaned and all the canned goods reorganized and all the groceries that had been delivered put neatly away, and all of the pool towels have been washed and rerolled in the cabana, and their linen closets are dusted and all of their luxury sheets are neatly folded, and all of the exterior trim has been touched up with fresh paint and all of the planters are filled with flowers, they appreciate my attention to detail and how I care for their homes…they expect to come to their beach houses to relax and unwind from their busy city lives…I think they like very much what they see or they would not keep me on as their caretaker. I tell people that I take care of their homes with the same love I take care of mine, and I mean it. The way I kept my cash drawer when I worked in retail is exactly the way I wind up my extension cords and hoses…I want people to have great expectations of me and of my work. If they judge or observe me, I want it to be positive, and I EXPECT it to be positive.

I do not in any way whatsoever expect people to take the time to organize like I do, or clean like I do, but I guess what I do expect is for people to do their best and give their best or at least try to do their best. I am sure there are people who never fold their sheets but always keep their cars washed, or who never reorganize their pantry cupboard and rotate their stock but they always keep their piano tuned and their lawnmower blades sharp. I am sure there are people who seldom wipe down the tops of their baseboards but they keep their golf clubs polished. I am sure there are people whose homes are messy but their children’s clothes are always clean and their little hands and faces are always washed. We can pick and choose what to care about, we can categorize the importance of all the things, or the meaningless of all the things however we want, we have free will. We can not give two figs about weeds in our stones, but care a great deal that our dog’s nails are clipped and their coat is groomed, we can not give two figs about whether our linens are wrinkled, but care very much that our gray roots are regularly dyed. We can not give two figs about _____ whatever, fill in any blank you like because on the flip side we do give five figs about _____

If a couple gets divorced the two parties involved might know EXACTLY what went wrong and completely EXPECTED the disintegration of their marriage, while we on the outside think “wow they seemed so happy and well matched, this breakup is so unexpected” but what do we know? Nothing. Expectations are quite personal. I expect a lot from myself and it is my opinion that too many people expect too little from themselves and that’s why they go through life in a half-assed way. This is not a self-righteous judgment just a personal observation & I used to think people were lazy or uninspired, or just didn’t care about how they are perceived, but I guess as I grow into an older woman I really just have to recognize that some people simply do not care about what I care about, and that has to be okay with me. I have to let people do what they want and expect they let me do what I want. If they want a mediocre life with half-assed results, so be it, it’s not my life and why should I care? AND maybe mediocrity is absolutely all they want, why is it my business?? I can expect myself to behave in a specific way, and I can’t expect that specific way to be the way for somebody else. I suppose this is the message my brain wants me to receive this morning. Like that book “Let Them,” I guess I should…

To regard something as likely to happen is more subjective than perhaps I understand. BUT I’m willing to do the work TO understand all of it. If I make more positive changes this year than I made last year, I expect that my life will be better in 2026 than it was in 2025. If I keep lying to myself about what I find tolerable or acceptable from others, it’s likely that my year ahead will be just as annoying and dreadful as the one we said goodbye to yesterday evening! I feel like a superhero this morning, like I have the power to make my life what I want it to be!! What a revelation!!! It seems that I have the abilities and resources to expect the best…AND if I start to screw up, or do not follow my path, and the unexpected arrives, I will take that as a sign that I must change direction quickly. If I am expecting this new year ahead of me to be far better than last year I must remember, daily, that it is in my power to make it so. I started to make some behavioral changes in November, which I expect myself to stick with. I’m expecting 2026 to be better in every measurable way than 2025. It is within myself to make it so. I have great expectations, and I don’t want any unexpected challenges, but I know I can face them head on if need be. If I expect myself to make these changes, and commit to them, then consequently I’m expecting my blog in 365 days to report a very positive upswing in the life and times and adventures of R* …so mote it be.