Expectation is such a sneaky thing. There I was thinking I had few major expectations about what this would be, and yet the most obvious one of all has been staring me in the face while I suffer chronic domestic blindness.

I was the expectation. There I was looking everywhere else for it, and the whole time it was me! The perfect partner; the perfect step-dad; the perfect manager: Mr Incredible! All these things I have never been I somehow expected to be the moment I stepped off the plane, jetlag notwithstanding.

What it is to be a super human being: the entire universe becomes entirely dependent upon you for its survival. All this time it has existed not realising how much it needs you, somehow stumbling through the darkness and surviving – but surely not really living. And now Super Humanbeing is here to make it all right!

No wonder it all seemed so difficult. That truly is quite a responsibility. Exhausting stuff, really.

And so obvious, yet somehow obscure. I noticed it a number of times: something would go ‘wrong’ – a lack of awareness, a ‘mistake’, - and that would set me in an unliftable fog. I knew in my head that it’s not possible to ‘do it wrong’, yet all the evidence was suggesting I had. And naturally, the dominoes would then start falling and the prophecy fulfilled itself. It always does. We get what we ask for, and I was ‘wrong’.

It turns out I can get way down on myself for making a mistake – especially when I’m attempting the Super Humanbeing myth. A mistake! Isn’t that the ultimate opportunity for forgiveness? Isn’t it a good place to cut some slack? Turns out Super Humanbeing doesn’t have much room for compassion: too busy saving the universe to care for it; to love it. Point missed by superhuman proportions.

And now, as I dissolve slowly back into ordinariness, things are starting to get easier. One of those ‘mistakes’ appeared the other day, and before Super Humanbeing could commence punishment, E said, “Don’t let this get you down. Please be forgiving. If you can’t forgive yourself, how can you forgive others?”

Thank you, E. Thank you for reminding me again and again why I’m here.