IT has been a long time since anyone has surprised me in a good way. The corollary of that is that no one much surprises me in a bad way any more either.
That isn't as much comfort as you would think. Knowing you are going to be kicked in the teeth before it happens doesn't make it any less sore. And you don't have to be surprised to be shocked or to feel disappointment.
I always assumed it would be a relief. When I was expressing disbelief at certain behaviour or treatment, my husband would reach for his favourite country boy saying: "What do you expect from a pig but a grunt?"
Huh, I would think. What sort of nirvana must that be? To have expected that to happen? I would have been forewarned and... prepared. I could have built defensive walls round me and avoided these hurt feelings. That's a place I want to get to. Is there a bus that will take me there?
Turns out there sort of is. The ageing process. It's a bus that doesn't have to move you very far geographically to take you far, far from the place you once were.
There also isn't much of a timetable. I moved on more through a challenging fortnight in my professional life than during the 18 years of formal education which preceded it. One year of motherhood took me further than 11 years of marriage have. Other people have got here without either of those things. Everyone takes their own path. Like you, when the coronavirus pandemic ends, I will be exactly one billion years away from where I was when it began.
Like most journeys' end, the destination will not match up to the version in you imagination.
The last 14 weeks have been a clear illustration how what little surprise life holds. Or rather doesn't hold...
Was I surprised No 10 adviser Dominic Cummings drove with his wife (reportedly suffering from coronavirus symptoms) from their London home to his parents' estate in Co Durham at the height of the lockdown in late March? Not even a little bit.
Was I surprised he didn't apologise, despite England's deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam saying the lockdown rules "apply to all", and is still in his job weeks later, despite a public outcry? Nope.
As campaign director for the Vote Leave campaign, he was behind the infamous claim the UK would give £350m a week to the NHS after leaving the EU.
Later proven to be untrue, rather than expressing regret he said in February 2017: "Would we have won without £350m/NHS? All our research and the close result strongly suggests no."
By his own admission he won an referendum based on a multi-million pound lie, so why would he baulk at a 516-mile round trip to visit his folks?
Was I surprised when George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis when a white police officer knelt on his neck during an arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit note? Was anybody?
In 2015 we all saw unarmed Walter Scott shot in the back and killed in South Carolina as he ran AWAY from a police officer after being stopped for a non-functioning brake light.
A year later we watched news and read press reports about the fatal shooting of Philando Castile during a traffic stop.
Last month we read Breonna Taylor was shot eight times in her own bed when police broke down the door to her apartment in an attempted drug sting - hunting for a man already in custody. What then is honestly surprising about George Floyd's death?
And what is surprising about Manchester United star Marcus Rashford's campaign to end holiday hunger for children whose free school meal entitlement would have ended in the summer?
Who is surprised that a decent young man who has known poverty should try to help others, just because he could afford not to?
Was Dominic Cummings to use his influence at the heart of power to help hungry children - well, that would be a pleasant surprise.
