Disappointing — slackermama . com

by Marilyn on February 12, 2008

I don’t do disappointment well. I think it’s because as a child, I didn’t have a lot of disappointment. If I was looking forward to a particular event, that event nearly always happened. I can’t think of any instance in which plans had to change at the last minute. Which, you know, is pretty lucky. Simply because disappointments are a part of life. However, I did get to a certain age believing rather wrongly in a certain sort of “justice”. I believed that if I wanted something badly enough, it would only be fair for me to get that something. That’s always how it had worked in the past, after all. I didn’t have a lot of “life isn’t fair” moments to refer back to. Again, that’s a good thing but also a bad thing. Because once I started experiencing disappointment, I was ill equipped to deal with it.

Looking forward to something only to have the rug yanked from underneath me at the last moment always leaves me shaken to my core. You would think that like most people, I would stop putting all my eggs in particular baskets, that I would temper my expectations somewhat. Unfortunately, I haven’t quite learned how to do that yet. I wish I would start learning, because in the meantime, this devastating disappointment is for the birds.

In my adult years, I’ve had a good deal of disappointing things happen. Some are large, some are small. The large disappointments are enough to knock a person back on their kiester and take the wind out of them, for sure. The grief of shattered hope and expectation in those situations is crippling.

One would think those huge disappointments would temper the sting of the small ones. That perhaps with the renewed perspective, the small disappointments wouldn’t matter as much. I haven’t, sadly enough, found that to be true in my instance. If anything, those large disappointments have made the smaller ones all the more intolerable. It’s almost as if it’s all happening again, when small plans are broken. Which, logically, I know is absurd. When someone has to break plans with me, or a fun trip doesn’t happen, it in no way is meant to be connected to losing a child. Not even in the most abstract terms. But perhaps the feeling of having that hope yanked from me brings back those old familiar emotions. Everything, in that moment, bubbles to the surface.

This is my problem, I know that. I would LOVE to get over this. I would love to be able to distance myself from the roller coaster of emotions that I feel. My husband told me the other day that he has learned not to count his chickens until they’re hatched, he just doesn’t get his expectations up too high. I wish I could do that. I want to be able to do that. It’s not that hope is a bad thing, it’s really rather a GOOD thing, but when it causes me pain I can’t help but wish to temper it a bit. I also need to work on my trust issues. I’m far too much of a “wears her heart on her sleeve” sort of person and I always take things and people at face value. I almost always believe what I’m told and I’m pretty sure my bullshit-ometer is busted. Plainly put? I’m gullible. And I need to work on that. Maybe if I weren’t so gullible, I wouldn’t get my hopes up so much and I wouldn’t get so disappointed all the time.

It’s a thought, at least.

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