Dealing With Disappointment

So often in life, things don’t go as planned. We have a grand plan and it is planned out perfectly. Unfortunately, nothing ends up going like you thought it would. How do you react?

If 2020 has had anything going for it, it’s that it is perfectly unpredictable. Whether it’s work, school, vacations, or the holidays, we have had to constantly change our plans and adapt to the circumstances presented. 

I usually get pretty excited about the holidays. I love getting together with family and sharing meals with those I love. Our holiday plans were altered, no getting together with extended family, and I was feeling less than cheery. To help bring some cheer back into our lives, we decided to drive up to North Georgia to a tree farm. We wanted have the experience of cutting down our Christmas tree. I had this picture in my head of Dave, Parker, and I walking around the farm, finding the perfect tree, cutting it down, and supporting a small, family farm. 

The drive to the farm should have been all the foreshadowing I needed. It was the day before Thanksgiving and traffic was horrible. What should have been about an hour drive, ended up taking close to two hours. The closer we got to the farm, the darker the sky got. When we pulled into the parking lot we were hit with a few rain drops. As we waited for the tractor to arrive that would take us out to where the trees were, it began to lightly rain. When we climbed aboard the tractor it began to rain a little harder. By the time we got out to where the trees were it was really raining. I misread the website and they only had two types of trees that you could cut down and neither of them were the ones we usually like to get. By the time we realized this the tractor had left and we had to walk back up to the main part of the farm in the pouring rain. 

I was truly disappointed. As someone once said, “Expectation is the root of all heartache.” 

I had two options at this point, remain disappointed and allow that emotion to affect the rest of my day or allow myself to be disappointed but then move on. I chose the later. 

It is hard to have a plan fall apart, especially when we have had so little to hold on to this year. It is ok to feel disappointed when something doesn’t go as planned. Acceptance of what happened allows us to process it we can let it go. When we choose not to let it go we stay stuck in the past rather than living in the present. 

Our story ended well. We ended up going into the barn and picking out our perfect tree. We were able to laugh about the whole thing as we drove home in the pouring rain. Now it is a memory we won’t ever forget.