a case of expectation

i was stressed this last week, so i went to the pool to swim some laps.  standing on the edge, trying to convince myself to jump into the water was frightful.  it was going to be cold.  as i jumped in, the chill of the water nearly crushed my body and i was tempted to regret that i had jumped in at all.  it’s like this every time i go swimming.  i love the water, but it’s a little better in st. george or phoenix summer times than utah’s pathetic excuse of spring (and yes, it was an indoor pool, i’m just cold all the time).  too embarrassed to get right out of the pool and run into the sauna before even attempting to swim, i forced my arms and legs into a rigid crawl along the top of the water.  And it got better eventually.  and I realized what the problem was; the same problem with just about everything that’s causing me distress in my life right now.  thinking of being in water is just always an overwhelming thought for me because i expect it to be cold.  And it’s usually exactly how i expect it to be.  and i’m starting to realize that expectations can really screw things up.  expectation takes things that could have been spectacular and wraps them up in the lie of what they could have been.  it completely distracts you from the grandeur of the present.  At the root of all my disappointments and stress is expectation.  Such a dirty little word.