I’ve had a rough start to my summer. I couldn’t seem to figure out why I was feeling so tightly wound, irritated and falling behind until I had a conversation with a friend about it.
“Like most moms, I get so tired in June and just attempt to limp over the finish line,” I heard myself saying. “As each commitment wraps up, like music lessons or board meetings or school events, I heave a sigh of relief and think, ‘now I’m done and won’t have any more stress for the next two months.'”
As soon as these words left my mouth, I started to laugh. How ridiculous is that? But it was a revelation about my own secretive messed-up thinking – the kind that lurks in the basement of my psyche and trips me up again and again.
“An expectation is a premeditated resentment.” I love this wise tidbit from the recovery movement. When we establish a set of expectations, especially impossible ones like having a pollyanna summer where everything comes up unicorns and rainbows, we are ensuring defeat before we even get going.
I’d like to think I know this by now. Magical thinking is a hallmark of growing up in an alcoholic home. It was sewn into my DNA along with good manners and a raging inferiority complex. I have trouble shaking this iron-clad belief that some future “there” is easier/better/happier than this present “here”.
I know with certainty that “the grass is greener” is the road to doom. It doesn’t work. It’s never worked, and yet I fall for its seductive charm time and again, like the badass in the leather jacket who catches your eye in spite of your many and reasonable misgivings.
Falling into magical thinking is a child’s response to a set of very adult circumstances. Unicorn expectations are not compatible with a vibrant, healthy, responsible life. When we want everything to be clear-cut and easy, and it’s anything but, we are pissed off and disillusioned before our foot even leaves the starting block.
I”m really grateful for the conversation I had with my friend. It opened my eyes to why I have spent the last two weeks sullen and resentful. Real life doesn’t match up to fairy-tale expectations. It’s better to expect some bumps and roadblocks than to assume it will be smooth sailing because the calendar turns to July.
