I Should Have Expected No Different

I know what you’re thinking, not because I actually do, but because I am going to create my own interpretation, roll with it, formulate my words and tell YOU what you meant, or did, or think. When things crumble down, just remember it’s your fault for you thinking however I thought you were thinking.

Time over time, I have had to deal with this situation. People thinking they know how I feel, or how I think. Often it makes me sad because if I could open up my brain and heart, even someone with a speckle of compassion would likely hug me, versus coming at me at a 100MPH. I defer back to expectations… Today started off a little slow, a little exciting (interview on the phone), turned happy, followed by sadness. The sadness? Was actually caused by myself as I think it over. My expectations. No matter how much I try, I oft forget to remove this barrier.

Story time: (copied from How Expectations Undermine our Relationships and Happiness)

A few years ago, my husband was away from me for a few weeks, working  in another town. It was summer, and we were living close to the beach  at the time, so I often spent my Saturday nights walking along the ocean at sunset, enjoying the colors and sounds.

One Saturday night I was in a simply glorious mood. The beach was fill ed with happy families and couples, the Atlantic was a particularly lovely shade of aquamarine, and life felt just about perfect.

When I got back to my car I looked at my cell phone and saw that I had missed a call from my husband. I called him back and quickly realized his mood was not nearly as buoyant as my own: He wasn’t particularly chatty, and seemed pretty negative about the work he was doing.

I took this extremely personally and turned cold and quiet almost immediately, eventually taking the very juvenile step of hanging up on him. How dare he ruin my perfect summer evening!?

About ten minutes later, in the parking lot of a grocery store, I had  a huge epiphany: He hadn’t ruined anything. It was all me, as my negative feelings were entirely created by my expectations of how he should have behaved.

I had been anticipating that he would be in the same great mood I was, and when he wasn’t, I took it personally. I became upset that he wasn’t acting as I expected. I became angry because he wasn’t meeting the standards I had set.

In other words, I was completely responsible for my deflated mood.”

Now let me give a scenario: Imagine you are in a room (four walls). Inside of your room, you are struggling to finish a task, say painting the room. While you are painting, you also have to fix a leak on the roof. Alongside that, the phone rings, you stop to get a bite to eat for five minutes, getting back to your struggling tasks. (Remember this depiction and imagine you were going through this)

Now, imagine someone else, will call them X. You have no idea what they are doing, they too may have their struggles, they may not. You just don't know, you don’t see what they see, you have no idea. Now imagine this conversation.

X to You: “I expected you to do XYZ”

There is no escaping whether or not you told X you would do something for them. You meant in your heart to do it, but you wanted to get it done properly. Not when your mind is astray with all of your struggles. Yet the time came and passed.

X to You: “Guess I mean little to you”

X to You: “How I feel is irrelevant.”

I have been in these conversations before, and as stated, if I could open my brain, or heart for inspection, this conversation would never occur however, I go back to something I mentioned before: silos. We all live in a silo of our own.

No one can see our world, the struggles, the things we do, the pains we feel, the sorrows. No one can see our smiles, joys, and so forth no matter what we tell ourselves. So hearing a similar conversation as the one in the analogy, I immediately became teary eyed to the point I stopped talking. My initial thoughts were: “That you would make such a comment…” It wasn’t what I expected. But then again, I should have expected it (the irony). Or should I have just stopped talking and explain the scenario?

Either method I would have chose (talking, or silence) would have been a losing battle. A painful battle when X is the one you see yourself spending your life with. Relationships can be difficult. How do you address these situations. Deep down inside I know that neither words, nor actions can break down those walls (where someone sees you for you… They see and understand the struggles). All I know is that I can only do my best. I will have my ups, and my downs. I am only human. Need to keep repeating that to myself. I am human I make mistakes… Others will be offended by them. I do not mean to offend, but again, I am only human.

WIth that said, I will crawl back under my rock and end this with a quote from a song:

“My beloved do you know

How many times I stared at clouds

Thinking that I saw you there

These are feelings that do not pass so easily

I can't forget what we claimed as ours”

Beloved - VNV Nation