I’m writing this at our outdoor table while the boys, deprived of their devices all day, focus on iPads inside. It is a moment’s peace in between the moments of…life. Of waving to The Husband this morning from the driveway, the three of us in varying stages of anxiety (me: high; The Kid: mild; Little Brother: nonexistent), as he hopped into a hybrid Uber that fascinated TK and worried me. The car taking him to the airport for a nearly two-week trip back to America, a trip spent seeing family and friends but mostly working. And working on our future, at that. No pressure or anything.

I’m in between LB’s first day of school successfully completed and TK’s starting tomorrow. One precipice gently dismounted and another yet to come. After last year’s teacher debacle we must have been exhausted–well, by that and by the holiday we took afterward, #firstworldproblems–and we spent much of the summer not in the constant playdate mode I envisioned but more in hibernation, social events peppered in but more moments spent watching movies, sitting on the couch, and just staying home. I’m ready for that to change…and not.

I’ve found my expectations (definition: future disappointments) to be two-sided: on the one hand, that of the kids’ schools, they’re high. LB is at the same spot, in the same class, with the same teachers and the same best school friend. I’m a fan of same, even if it isn’t the card that’s been dealt most often. For his part, TK stands to gain a better teacher experience this year along with his same therapists at the same school.

On the other hand, we start the year without TH in his rightful place–with us–and my expectations for sanity are…LOW. Gone will be the early-morning hikes with my trek team, or the post-dinner zone-out while he rumbles with the boys. I’ll have the fleeting hours each week while the kids are at school to myself, with their own non-summer kind of worry mixed in, and no partner alongside me for support (ie, hearing my complaints).

We do have a hell of a security system, though. So there’s that.

On the flight back from our holiday, I watched Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. My expectations were low–any film with an exclamation point in the title already feels too chipper for me on a good day, and especially on a flight that was delayed three hours. But I found myself grinning like an idiot through the whole thing, including the credits, and feeling like I had pulled something off, had stumbled upon a big secret. I think this is how it often works–low expectations leave space for surprise. I’m sure life would be handled best with this idea in mind, but it’s impossible not to think ahead, not to form opinions of how things should, and might, be.

Yesterday TH took the boys to a movie and I wandered around the mall, shopping and thinking about the talk I’m meant to give at a conference in April. I dutifully listened to my most inspirational songs and watched some riveting videos and pecked away at my phone as a few ideas scuttled through my brain. None of it felt particularly right. Last night, I went to the bathroom and glanced at TH’s deodorant can, and that’s when inspiration hit. I can’t explain it and I don’t know that I want to be able to. It’s equal parts nonsense and amazing, this life.

So between the alone hours and the chicken nugget/wine and cheese dinners that will mark our coming days, I’ll try not to expect much while secretly expecting the world, because that’s how it goes anyway. I’ll expect to lose my mind a little while also expecting TH to be returned to us safely. I’ll worry about the boys at school while expecting their days to be historically wonderful. I’ll wake up with four legs in my face and I’ll get the grey dyed out of my hair and I’ll operate partner-less yet not alone, expecting grace to show up in deodorant cans and friends, in kid jokes and solitude, in everything if I’ll just look.

It’s the only thing for which my expectations can never be too high. I mean, what else would show up, just as I’m finishing this, as Little Brother with his pants down to his knees, saying, “How’s it going out here, man?”