When you are born expectations are already set for you. You're not even 1 year old are you larger than average? Smarter than your peers... walking first? What are your first words? Then as you get older you find out that you put your own expectations on yourself to make others happy. Like when you eat all your dinner on your plate and you are praised! Oh yeah all those lima-beans are gone... woo hoo! Yet we have to re-train ourselves as we grow up not to eat everything in sight. Expectations of you are a nice girl so you should marry someone that will take good care of you, have 2.5 children in a nice neighborhood and be happy with what God gives you. Then when you wake up (for me it was BEFORE I had the kids) and realize the country club lifestyle isn't for you, what do you do with your head that still is the devil on your left shoulder telling you that you failed all expectations! Damn you and your ideas of independence and freedom? Your need to help others and not be tied down by an egotistical control freak? I just sat with my glorious therapist (best one in a while that I've found... after the last one just said "get over it") and we talked about how can one get past the expectations of others and really think about what is important to us? Why is settling into a relationship and making it work so important and why my heart aches when others are not happy. Happy with themselves, life or something they've done.
There is a blank page in my journal. This freaks me out. Hard to decide what to put on that page because of the expectations I have placed upon me, others have placed upon me and I just don't want to let anyone down. So do I do something to help ME grow or please others. These are the questions that roll in my head like a gerbil on a wheel.
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