Did you have the time you wanted? I asked.

Not exactly…but it was good. She answered.

What an inspiring answer to my question.

Summer is a time of setting expectations for how things will be, good, and bad. Road trips, family reunions, summer vacations and staycations, obligatory visits, home improvement projects. But it isn’t just summer. Anytime of year we look ahead and expect, imagine, hope, dread, or anticipate, that things will happen a certain way. They never do. Not exactly. Sometimes they are just as we expected, sometimes worse than we imagined, and sometimes, more than we ever could have hoped for. It’s just that it never turns out exactly as we expected.

We thought it was going to be this, but we got that.

We imagined it working out like this, but it worked out like that.

We wanted things to go this way, but they ended up going that way.

That’s why I love the response I got to my question, and am inspired to go forward holding my intentions with an open hand. Maybe you will be inspired too.