On Disappointment

Disappointment is such a funny thing.
You go around for a week
or two
or a month
thinking you know what you want,
and planning for it,
wishing an opportunity would come along,
and then when it does,
you work hard and hope it pays off
just to get shot down,
to get disappointed,
and suddenly you realize that you're relieved,
that you hadn't put your whole heart into something,
and that's good,
because your heart is happy still,
almost ecstatic with the possibilities a lack of change can offer too,
even with the disappointment
you just endured.

Background:
Husband had an out-of-state job opportunity come up,
and he interviewed for it,
tested for it,
he took all these little steps toward the job,
and after waiting and waiting,
and almost going crazy waiting,
he got a phone call this morning
saying he didn't get it.

And wouldn't you know?
We were both relieved.

Well, kind of.
We still have "move to another state"
on our life goals list,
but we also realized that
maybe we don't want to leave our family
while we're trying to add to it.

It's like this weird flip side,
where we didn't get what we wanted,
but we kind of won anyways.