expectations arinna i was sure it would be a big deal. i was sure it'd cry and shout and feel fifty-thousand different things at once. because it was the end of a period of my life, a big huge important event and goodbye to everyone and everything. but i sat straight faced and smiled and then drove home through the rain and barely thought twice about the final white gown steps and tassel twirls. anything that matters will last and maybe the final emergence of this group of cynically idealistic youth is the best we ever could have hoped for. 010616 ... unhinged i keep trying to convince myself that i won't have them anymore. because the less i expect the happier i am when you say things like that to me. if you say anything at all. at least i have pictures. 010616 ... Sonya can tear at one's continuity. Some are not meant to carry the entire load that is thrust upon them...only a few of these intangible weights are meant to be carried through the fires of despair. 020904 ... pilgrim "The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men oft Gang Aglee." I have learned to Expect the Unexpected. There is more in Heaven and Earth than What is contained in Our Philosophies. 020904 ... nr i don't really think i have high ones. nowadays it's usually my default not to expect much from people, and have them occasionally pleasantly surprise me. but i do wonder sometimes if i'll ever catch a break. like if something that seems to be happening could actually ever happen. i'm tired of trying to find distractions from disappointment. 151218 ... unhinged are a bitch. i think i am done projecting them onto every relationship i have and then i manage to fall in love with the least likely people at the strangest moments. i am hoping that my shambhala_training will help me to prevent that in the future 151218 ... nr i wanted you to be a certain way. i was trying to set you up to give me my desired response. because that's what i need in someone. so i can't blame you for not understanding or not being who you're not. but i can't help it. 160314 ... unhinged at this point i expect others to treat me like shit *shrugs* 160315 ... nr sometimes you have days where you pretty much just exist for other people. to meet their demands and expectations of you and to get judged and guilted out and made to feel like you haven't served your purpose if you don't deliver. 171103 ... tender_square “what do you think christmas day will look like? i mean, do you think we’re going to be at your parent’s place all day?” “i don’t know,” she said. his barrage of questions were stressing her out. “with it being my mom’s birthday too, i just don’t know how the day will shape out.” “i just don’t want to end up there all day,” he repeated. she thought to herself, “would that be so bad?” but said to him, “you know that you can go off anytime into the spare room to chill if you’re feeling tired or drained.” she knows social situations tire him out; she grew up with a father who has the same reaction to too much stimulation. there was an edge to his voice. “what’s the point of having a house in town if we’re not going to use it?” the frustration was rising in her chest. she didn’t want to snap. she didn’t want to fight. “i don’t know what it looks like yet,” she sighed. “i’ll find out more from my mom when we see her tomorrow.” as each holiday approached, he had discussions (or arguments, rather) with his family as to what the expectations were for spending time together. he hated languishing around someone else’s house all day with no agenda; he grew up with his siblings forced to sit in his grandparents’ home with nothing to do. his sister and his mother had no issue with this arrangement; his brother went along with anything to be reasonable. he was the only one in his family who resisted. and after he married, he did what he could to keep he and his wife separate in some respects, because they were their own family even if they didn’t have kids. and while she appreciated this gesture, she never asked him for it. it was more a fulfilment of his own needs that she indirectly benefitted from. but in benefiting, there was the expectation of reciprocity, that she was to do the same for him with her family. and she had obliged him, for quite a few years now. however, this arrangement was beginning to bother her. it seemed to her like yet another attempt for him to control how much time they spent with people outside of their relationship. “i don’t see how this is any different than when we stay at your dad’s place,” she said. when they visited, they lived in a basement spare bedroom for days and seldom left the house. his dad and stepmom went about their business, everyone did their own thing, no one got upset if the family wasn’t together at every second of the day. her family was no different. “look, i just don’t want to spend the whole day there.” his tone was becoming aggravated. the plan was to swing by her parents’ for brunch; the shape of the rest of the day was unclear. there had been talk of a movie but with yet another variant of covid spreading, that option seemed unlikely. she didn’t understand what the problem was with them staying after breakfast, spending the afternoon, and returning to their place in the early evening. did that constitute the whole day in his definition? she didn’t want to pursue a discussion when she felt she wasn’t listening, when she felt herself becoming defensive. in her interpretation of what was unfolding, how he felt about christmas day was indicative of how he saw life in her hometown unfolding for the two of them. if they were going to live there the way they lived in the states, what was the point? she was tired of it being just the two of them. it was always just the two of them. it was never not just the two of them. she needed her family. and he needed her family too. what was the problem? 211222 ... tender_square “when i think about coming back here, i don’t see myself doing it with him.” “why is that?” “it’s just this sense i have when we’re with you guys, he has this wall up with our family. and he’s said to me before that we’re close-knit, we’re a clan and we don’t let anyone in, but i don’t think that’s true.” “think of all the people that have been in our house over the years with all you girls! we welcome everyone.” “i know. i’m just tired of him being an outsider with us, it’s been seven years.” “i didn’t really notice it until the wedding. i used to always think he was that way just with us, but then i saw him with his own family and realized he’s like that with everybody.” “and yet he claims he doesn’t have any kind of social anxiety.” “he’s built a wall around himself.” “he absolutely has. and i’m the only one he allows beyond the wall, and he wants to keep me behind that wall with him and i can’t do it anymore. did i tell you he was upset with me after the wedding?” “about what?” “he said that he felt that i left him during the reception because i was dancing with you and grandma for a lot of it.” “but he had his family there!” “i know. this is what i’m talking about. i don’t even like the way he interacts with his family. he’s too strident about keeping us separate from them. and i realize some of that was necessary when he was the first of his siblings to get married, when his mom treated us like we were still kids and he had to say that we were our own family unit now too, but i was not okay with how little we were with his mom when she was sick.” “well, how can you say something when you don’t have the same relationship with her that he does?” “it wasn’t right that all the fell to his aunt and his sister, and that he and his brother didn’t do their share, especially at the end when covid didn’t need to be as much of a concern when we knew she was terminal.” “it’s hard for some people to be around death.” “i get that; and he talked with his mom and said he couldn’t be there for when it happened and she understood. but we could’ve been then more than what we had been before she was gone. do you know he got upset with me for grieving her, for saying that she wasn’t my mother and why was i crying so much?” “did you say how that hurt you?” “i don’t know that i did. because i didn’t want to upset him when he was grieving in his own way.” “maybe he can’t be around crying?” “i don’t know.” she sighed. “i’ve always wanted to ask, whatever happened with the dog?” “he said that i was going through a mother complex with that puppy, that he knew what new father’s felt like when their wives ignored them after giving birth. he was upset that i was giving the dog more affection than him.” she had been grateful that they never wanted kids, because she knew how resentful he’d be, how much she’d be expected to handle it all because it was too much stress for him to handle, he needed life to be “settled.” “you know, i’m just remembering that i was so angry with him when i wanted to keep the dog and he didn’t, that i thought about divorcing him. and i thought that it was crazy, that i was even considering leaving him so i could keep this dog i had grown attached to.” they’d only been married a year, and she realized that what she perceived to be an over-reaction at the time may not have been at all; it wasn’t about the dog. it was about the fact that he wanted all of her all the time. this is what he expected her to give up when she committed her life to him. 220227 ... nr i can't help these just because i need to be able to count on something. but as soon as they're felt, the expected push away. 221227 what's it to you? who go blather from