Blog 0 - Expectations

Hello there, Ryan here. Welcome to my blog! This space is meant to keep you up to date with the next 10 months as I make my way to Canterbury, England for a faith-based service (there's more about that in the About section of the site).

As you can see, this is 'Blog 0'. I'm not yet in Canterbury - I haven't even left my parents' house to start this journey - but I wanted to introduce you to the blog and the type of writing I'll be doing. Every post will have a title including the number of blog and a word/phrase, which will be the focus for the blog and will be 'reviewed' on a scale of 1-10, with '1' being something I don't like or had a bad experience with and a '10' being something that I found amazing (hang in there while I explain what I mean).

I've never written a blog before. I've journaled quite a bit, but that was only ever for me - if I would even re-read it! In March when I found out I would be living/serving abroad for the better part of a year, I knew I wanted to keep my friends and family back home updated with what I'm doing. But the idea of a blog where every couple weeks I would go hour by hour and recap my days sounded intimidating and selfishly, not very interesting to write. So, I put the blog on the back burner and forgot about it, hoping the excitement or motivation would appear.

And a couple months later, it did! Mike, a friend of mine, recommended I read the book "The Anthropocene Reviewed" by John Green. I was already reading a book with more on my 'To Read Before England' list, so it went to sit on my kitchen table. I quickly finished the my current book, excited to bike to the library to pick up the next one, but they didn't have it - sad:( I was then in the weird 'in between books' funk, until the gifted-book-turned-table-decoration caught my eye! I finished it in 2 days. For those of you who don't know, "The Anthropocene Reviewed" reads as a compilation of reviews on seemingly random items/topics/ideals/activities/etc. To give an idea of what I mean, some examples of the reviews include Diet Dr Pepper, Halley's Comet, and Scratch 'n' Sniff Stickers. Now, 300 pages of someone else's reviews sounded terribly boring at first, but within his review, Green would tell hilarious stories, open up about his vulnerabilities, or share his feelings/emotions about his current life. And I liked that a lot.

I don't expect (and I hope you don't either) to write as well as John Green. I mean, golly, his ability to use his voice in his writing in incredible! I have little to no writing background, but I hope to at least be able to write some grammar/spelling error-filled reviews and share my stories without being too boring for you :)

If you're hanging in there okay, I wrote my first review below. (The following will be what the majority of my posts will look like).

Expectations

The word 'expectation' has been swirling around my brain for some time now, probably around 5 months. I don't remember when or why exactly it moved in, but just like an obnoxious neighbor, every couple of days the word 'expectations' would play its loud music and I would be reminded of its residence in my thoughts and how disappointing and frustrating having expectations can be (this is a little hint into this love/hate relationship).

I have two quick stories from my summer about how reality and my expectations didn't exactly line up. Silly me for thinking otherwise.

This summer was my last (for the time being) living in Gunnison, Colorado. Gunni was my home for 5 years while I completed undergrad and graduate school and I spent 4 of those summers living and working there. Sitting on the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains, shadowed by the West Elk mountain range, the Gunnison Valley is quite the spot to have fun outdoors. I definitely had my fair share of hiking, camping, floating on the river, skiing - you name it! However, because I was in school, I always felt I wasn't able to recreate as much as I wanted or as much as I was expected to as a local of the valley. So, after graduating for the second time from Western, knowing I was only going to be working 3 days a week in my last summer there, I wanted to have a big summer of camping and hiking and biking.

Well, the first weekend came and past - no big trips. Then, the second weekend - nothing. I think I did one quick hike on a weekday during those two weeks, but I already felt behind on this great summer. I began to feel antsy, wanting to do something but never sure what that 'something' was. One probably perfectly sunny summer day, I found myself with my favorite book in my hand sitting on the patio of my favorite coffee shop. "The Alchemist," is a short novel about learning to understand the world and its people/places, personal growth through struggle in loneliness and relationships, and the adventures one may experience in it all. It felt fitting to re-read before this next year. It ended up being the first of 10 books read this summer.

As you can imagine, I wasn't expecting myself to read through hundreds of pages in a few days, or stay up on Friday nights reading in my bed, or to spend more time on that coffee shop patio than I did in the mountains - but golly, am I grateful I did! Looking back at the summer as a whole, the quiet time spent exploring those pages was exactly what I needed. It allowed me to decompress from the last 5 years of school and specifically the never-ending false summits that was my Master's Thesis (thank you to my great pal Rob for that discussion on the importance of decompressing). Simultaneously , the solitude I experienced from countless hours of reading provided the space to prioritize preparing my mental health for this next year.

I still hiked a few times, trail ran a lot, and started mountain biking - loving every second of recreating in Gunni for the last time for a while. I remember often feeling conflicted about what to do on my Saturday mornings. Multiple times I had full-day hikes planned which ended up substituted for a quiet morning of tea, the Farmer's Market, and reading. Guilt for deciding against something I have loved forever crept in. However, it would soon be replaced with excitement for this new hobby I have learned to love. Although miles different from my original expectations, I wouldn't change how I spent my free time this summer.

My second story on 'expectations' takes place over the span on an evening, compared to a whole summer. My last full day in Gunnison rolled around, rather fast actually, and after a morning of tea and a several hours of packing, I had some plans for the evening. I expected to bike to and from playing volleyball with friends, say bye to another friend real quickly, and then spend the rest of the night around a campfire with two of my best friends.

Spoiler alert - none of those things happened.

Not to their full extent, at least. I still biked to volleyball and had a great time playing with new friends, the majority of who I met in June. After the difficulty of saying my goodbyes I looked forward to biking home under a pretty picturesque sunset, only to find my bike's front tire completely flat. Of course, haha! It ended up being not a huge deal, but I had some high hopes for this last night and this put a damper on it! Oh what a fool I was thinking my troubles stopped there.

I circled back to the field where we were playing volleyball to pick up my useless bike and on my way to see another friend, the most terrible, screechy, metal-on-metal sound started from my front right tire. Now, I've had to do some fixing up with this car (her name is Poi) since I've had her and was getting ready to sell her in the next week, so as I pulled over and thought "What now?", I was feeling just as deflated as my bike's tire. My friend Lexie and her boyfriend were great help as I was trying to just figure out what was making the noise, and after calling my dad (AKA my go-to for anything car related), we decided it may be related to the brakes and that I should take the tire off and look around.

I must've loosened a stuck pebble or something, because even though I was expecting to take her into the mechanic the morning of my moving day, when I drove Poi after putting her tire back on, there was no noise. The trip down to Denver was seamless and she sold a week later, so all's well that ends well - even if I didn't bike home or spend my last night around a campfire.

Expectations are weird. If I expect something to happen that's bad and it doesn't happen - then I'm happy. But if expect something to happen that's good and that doesn't go as planned - then I'm disappointed. It feels like expectations are inevitable, right? Or maybe I can control them to be more reasonable? I don't know. I don't have any great answers about solving expectations like John Green would.

I do know that I have quite the adventure coming up and I'm trying my hardest to not have any unrealistic expectations that will leave me disappointed. I will feel a lot of emotions this year - happiness, loneliness, excitement, sadness, fear, love, vulnerability, etc - but I hope I will never feel disappointed because my silly brain expected something unrealistic. I've learned this summer that on the other side of expectation can be something pretty cool - like a summer of reading and growth. As much as I tried and will continue to try to see the positive in all situations, I also learned that expectations aren't always met and that the result is just a big ol' bummer - like laying under my car at 9pm.

I know that everything won't go as planned this next year and there will be struggles, but I also know that I'll get through it; I'll learn and grow quite a bit; I will meet amazing people and hear their stories - and you'll be along for the ride!!

I give Expectations a 5/10

I kinda felt like a ship captain typing out the final phrase of that last sentence, so this is only fitting:

"All aboard the S.S. Ryan for this 10 month long journey"

(I've been writing for a couple hours now so my brain is feeling a little wonky - so you have more of that to look forward to!)

Until next time -

Ryan