Burying Expectations

Have you ever held on so tightly to an imagined version of someone in your head, held on with a death grip because letting go means you have to face the reality that they won’t ever live up to the fantastical image you have painted them as?

Have you ever closed your eyes and been washed over by the warmness that is your love for them, only to reopen your eyes and realize your love is contingent on a way they will never be?

Have you ever constructed in detail exchanges with them that have never happened, that won’t ever happen, confabulated a sense of security that you know you will continue to ache for as long as you live?

Perhaps you have not, but I know I am not alone in this, I know someone has.

So I wonder, do you have the answers, or will I find them as I continue to live and explore this?

How do I start to mourn the loss of someone who is still alive? How do I separate myself from a figure who never was what I needed of them? How do I let go of the yearning for something I won’t ever have in the way that I need it to be, in the way I so badly want to require of it, in vain.

How do I start to release a little bit at a time the pain of dissatisfaction, the pain of discontent that has built up over nearly 26 years as I grow into the realization I won’t ever have that which I need of them?

How do I reconcile the loss of a figure that, as a human, I so deeply believe I am in the right to have, when I know I am not, and it is my responsibility to come to terms with that rather than fight the losing battle of trying to attain it.

In jewish tradition one sits shiva, mourns the loss of a close family member for 7 days after death. It gives one time to reconcile the loss and sit with the experience.

Can I do this if they are living? I can’t make them more alive to me, I can’t change them or what I need of them, I can only change my expectations and reactions.

Can I bury my expectations, sit with the emotional loss, and attempt to let them go?

I guess I can. I guess this is the point when I set boundaries for me rather than for them.

This is the point at which I place a barricade around the deep end and don’t permit entry unless a lifeguard is present. Or rather, I don’t permit entry until they have earned their own certification and gained access to the deep end.

You can’t swim here until you have worked for it, until you have proven you are worthy of swimming in these depths and I won’t have to save you if you flail.

Until then, I will bury my expectations along with the life vests that in vain I have been attempting to pull down over their heads as they wave their arms, refusing to let me adorn their cores with a flotation device and shriek about how they won’t drown if I just trust them to venture in without swimming lessons.