Anticipation.
Anticipating.
Anticipate.
In
anticipation of your quick reply.
I
am anticipating a smooth transition.
I
anticipate the worst.
Anticipating is a strange thing. You
can anticipate the bad. You can anticipate the good. Context to the verb
anticipate indicates trepidation or optimistic eagerness. Sometimes it is just
a matter of seeing and preparing. Radar anticipated Colonel Potter’s needs. The
snooty waiter anticipated that Kermit would want straws for the wine.
To a degree, we celebrate
anticipation. Wedding and baby showers are given in anticipation of an event (though
I recently had a friend that had her baby the Tuesday before her scheduled
shower making a mockery of the whole system.) Advent is celebrated in
anticipation of Christmas (though retailers start their anticipatory
celebration of Christmas right after Halloween.) We decorate in anticipation of
various holidays. We put out empty Easter baskets and hang empty stockings
anticipating their filling. An engagement ring is placed on a finger with the
anticipation that another ring will follow in the near future.
On
my sixth wedding anniversary, I had been alone in Texas for two weeks after
starting a new job. It had been hard for me to leave Michigan, harder still to
be alone in a new place trying to start a new chapter without anyone I knew. My
wife and (at this point) three children were arriving on a plane that day. I
got to the airport early and waited as close as I could to the security checkpoint
in anticipation of balance restored. Anticipation of seeing my family again.
Anticipation of starting this new life properly.
On
my son Dylan’s tenth birthday, we started a two-day journey caravanning with a
moving truck and our van. We were moving from the desert oilfields of Midland,
Texas to the mountain splendor of the Great Salt Lake Valley. We had been
planning for months; preparing, packing, loading. We had spent the previous day
sitting at the end of our block with a broken down moving truck. We were ready.
We were eager. But we were leaving later than we had anticipated. I was nervous,
but I was anticipating a better life in a better place for my family. It was a
hard trip, but we have found what we were looking for. I will never be an Utahan,
I will always be a Michigander, but I anticipate happily living out our lives
in Salt Lake City.
On my seventeenth wedding anniversary,
I will embark with my wife and now seven children on a two-day journey from
Salt Lake City to the land of my birth. I anticipate a smooth trip. I have
anticipation of introducing my five year old to a place he has never been and
to relatives he has never met; his uncle Jason and his Smith cousins, other
than Shelby. He has met Shelby; he is too polite to say, but I think he was
unimpressed. After eleven years of missing a lot of family going-ons, I
anticipate seeing two of my nieces march with the same Fife and Drum Corps that
I was with for six years, so long ago; being able to be there for my oldest
nieces graduation party (they were seven when I moved to Texas;) seeing things
and people I have not seen in too long.
Today for me is awash with
anticipation. I will be off work for two weeks straight for the first time
since I can’t remember when. I get to go to Michigan. Tonight, I will likely sleep
a restless and poor, anticipatory sleep like a child on Christmas Eve. The two-day
road trip will be full of anticipatory talk of doing this and that and seeing
Grandma and Grandpa and aunts and uncles and cousins. There will be music
played too loud and scenery gazing and silly car games all filled with exited,
hopeful anticipation.
We anticipate a good visit.
We are anticipating a fun road trip.
In anticipation of a quick return.
Anticipate.
Anticipating.
Anticipation.
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