I know that I don't know

I've noticed as people go through immense life changes that they tend to tell themselves they are more prepared for it than they ever, ever are in actuality. We're in the process of beginning to pack for our move to Oregon, and I'm currently feeling, like, "Oh, yeah. I've got this." I'm making some victory laps around town, joining friends for that one last lunch we'll have as co-residents in this county and I'm pretty cheerful about the whole prospect of leaving this place and starting over in a completely different part of the country. After all, spring is coming, which is a time of new beginnings, so it feels right. 

But at least at my age I have one advantage, and it's that I know how much I don't know. In other words, I already understand that no matter how many webcams I visit, pre-moving trips I take to my new home, or stuff I read online about where I'm going, it's not going to matter. I have no idea how much I will grieve leaving this place -- or not. And I have no idea what I'll embrace -- or not, in our new home in Oregon. 

That's because there is really no way to completely get our human brains around certain large changes in our lives. Moving, birth, death, gain or loss of employment, anything that rocks our world. Just like asteroids circling the solar system, we can study the few we're able to see coming our way, we can try and predict their impact, but usually once they hit, we find they were not only bigger than we'd initially realized, but also full of hidden surprises -- like chunks of gold or poisonous gasses.

I do feel it's safe to anticipate the need for a big, waterproof down coat. Everything else, we'll wait and see on. 

My stepdaughter just went through a similar experience. She was admitted to a prestigious university last fall and I watched her trying to anticipate what was coming. In the months before she moved up there, she was  constantly emailing her newly assigned roommates (swapping recipes they were going to try and bouncing home decor ideas off one another), checking the online site where she could view the layout of her campus apartment and re-decorating it 20 times a day, and buying what she thought she'd need both for her new school and new home. To say it consumed her off-hours during summer was an understatement.

Yet, once the asteroid hit and she actually arrived at school, most of the planning and dreaming did not matter. She was in tears during her first month over the culture shock. (And the word "shock" should be in capital letters) It turned out, the roommates were nice but not best friend material so the dreams of cozy meals together never happened. The campus apartment complex was loud (and the freshman building across the courtyard was even worse) and the classes moved at the speed of light compared to her experience at junior college.

Over time she reconciled the actual reality of college life with the virtual one she'd dreamed of and is now doing great, but it took time. As it does for us all. Because as much as we try and leave a clean slate for the future to write what it will on our lives, we also have a very real need to imagine how we think it's going to go; to create a travel guide for ourselves as we head into uncharted waters. 

But at least with age we know, deep down, that the waters are uncharted, and can leave a wide berth between what we imagine and how different we know the actual reality of our new world will be. 

Pack the boxes but keep an open mind, friends.