Image Credit: Compilation/Jennifer Stahn

In case you have been living under a rock — or are simply one of those people who doesn’t buy into the awesomeness of HBO due to the excessive boob shots and the brutal glorification of everything horrible — it’s Game of Thrones month.

Of course, Game of Thrones month isn’t a real thing — if it was, I would have had more time to marathon watch seasons one through four because I’d be excused from my 9-to-5 — but it might as well be. With the much anticipated season five premier directly underneath us, people like myself who quit watching after the devastating end to season one and are now feeling left out (or who are trying to once again fill the void of not being at Coachella) are desperately trying to catch up.

Much like my relationship with donuts, I really want to like Game of Thrones. It’s imaginative and beautiful, it’s heart-wrenching and delicious, it’s disgusting but in a good way.

I just couldn’t take all the out-of-nowhere dying.

Which is why, when I found out that my husband had read all the books, I devised a plan to get me through.

“Does he die?” I ask every three seconds.

“Yes,” he answers, every three seconds.

“What about her?”

“Yes.”

“What about —"

“Yes,” he assures me. “Everyone you will come to even remotely like will die.”

It’s not that I like spoiler alerts, I just like to emotionally prepare myself for anything that might make me develop a chip on my shoulder — especially when it’s fictional (I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to avenge a fictional character, but it’s not as easy as you might think.)

For example, when Steve and I finally weaseled our way into the wait-list only parking lot at our building, only to discover it’s the darkest, most convenient theft location in the city, we prepared ourselves for the fact that one day, like so many of our neighbors, we will wake up and have to vacuum the glass off our front seats. We haven’t overly prepared for a break in — I’m pretty sure you can see, like, eight dimes in the cup holder — but we know there is a very good chance, on a day we’re running late, we’re going to discover our car no longer has windows.

One might say we are attempting to expect the unexpected. The purpose of which isn’t to prepare for catastrophe, but to practice the art of shock and acceptance.

Part of the aging process (now that I’m in my late twenties I get to pretend to be a part of this phenomena) is the realization that at some point, something not so wonderful is going to happen to you or someone you care about. This one fact has been a major cause of anxiety for me over the last few years as I start to develop a different style of relationship with the people in my life.

We’re no longer the ones who will live forever and land every fall on our feet. Our relationships now are based on a fleeting feeling — trying to capture the moment and remind ourselves that whatever may come, what matters is now.

Learning to expect the unexpected might be as simple as knowing myself well enough to ask if John Snow lives but the pay off is more complex. My car has yet to be broken into — and who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky — but chances are, I won’t always get lucky and when my luck runs out I know that I don’t want to be the same girl who had to take a four year hiatus after Ned Stark died.

Oh shoot, SPOILER ALERT! Expect the unexpected.

— Andria Parker is a 20-something blogger from Kamloops

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