Anticipating...

Soo...for those of you who actually read my blog and see me/talk to me in real life occasionally...this might confuse you a little, but I'll try to be as legit as possible...

I don't anticipate much.
Anticipating comes with the inclination of desire, longing, looking forward, eager expectation, hope.
I expect things. I wait for things. I have this idea things are going to happen...but then I conquer. I guess at what is to come...get ready for it...and I get through.
But I don't anticipate.
There is no joy in the wait.
So much of life has become a drudgery. A task. An assignment. Even things I thought I liked to do, things I remember giving me a sense of worth or accomplishment, things normal people get excited about. My goal was just to do it and move on.
Every youth group meeting this summer.
Both weeks of summer camp.
Appointments, meetings, designated trips.
Semesters, school years, classes.
Possibilities, potentialities.
I did look forward and enjoy time spent with certain friends and a couple key weddings. But when to the friends I had to bid farewell and the wedding days had come to an end...there was nothing more to look towards.

It occurred to me that I've forgotten how to dream, how to imagine, plan, be ambitious in hope. Dreaming comes with desire and anticipation. And I couldn't muster up what it took to create it. My greatest desire was just to get through the day. And I stopped looking forward to the next day...there was nothing there to look forward to.

Tonight...as I got ready for bed and I looked at my busy schedule for tomorrow, it occurred to me, out of the blue, that tomorrow was a day I wanted to be involved in. I eagerly began to imagine what the day would hold, the people I would meet, get to see, reconnect with. I started to dwell on the projects to get done and where those projects would take me. I felt myself build excitiment over the things I would both learn and experience. And it was the most unfamiliar feeling...to anticipate.

I don't know how long it will last. I don't know how long it will be until I am overcome by the drudgery of the day to day. But my new prayer is that I can go to bed each night with something in the tomorrow to add purpose, meaning, and anticipation to my life...