these things called expectations * 6/9/13

I have asked the universe to slap me,

well slap me hard, hard enough to get my attention, 

every time I have an expectation that isn’t met. 

And then I pleaded with the universe 

to give me an indelible gold star every time 

I have an expectation that is met. 

And what I discovered over time, 

well slowly over time, since I seemed to be 

very distracted from what I apparently

whimsically asked for 

and the universe reluctantly provided, 

was a twofold message that became perfectly, 

well startling clear. 

The first part is that I discovered 

that I am an expectation addict. 

I thought all along that I had

a sense of myself, my true self. 

But what I have come to understand is,

that I may have had a sense of self

but that got somewhat secretly replaced 

by my expectant self. 

I would have a thought and then 

my expectant self would have an expectation 

to top or trump that thought. 

It has become an expectant-self piggyback paradise.

There is hardly a clear thought that comes 

without some expectation dimension in a reframe. 

Nothing is really here any more. 

It is always on its way to somewhere else 

for some other thing 

to happen with it or to it as me! 

I feel like a pizza delivery guy inside my head. 

Whatever the thought is/was, 

I’m taking it to some place else, pronto. 

I am living the internal rush, as an act out

hurrying along from whatever now I’m in.

I’m not really here as I am always in transit. 

The paint on the wagon of self never really dries 

and the wagon never stops moving 

and I am not driving but riding shotgun! 

Also I have become self-consciously, 

a fearful anticipation junkie 

in reaction to my initial reaction.

Enough said, if you’ve been there. 

Okay, for the second part, I have become 

an internal hoarder of gold stars. 

Yes, it was initially nice to get indelible gold stars 

on a somewhat regular basis. 

I appreciated all of it, in the beginning. 

It was like a level of positive reinforcement 

that I really liked 

which is a kind of hidden clue right there. 

I mean I genuinely liked it, to start. 

But then, as the stars begun to accumulate, 

I started to notice, the inscriptions, 

I mean the what-for expectancies 

that I was getting from the stars. 

There were lots of repeats. 

Patterns appeared, incessancy seemed to be in play. 

After enough of this, a story emerged.

A story that was my expectant me that was 

apparently directing this expectation syndrome, 

and it all, ever so slowly, has become evident. 

Not real in the world to any one else 

but evident to me by the trail of expectation crumbs 

that I witness, created, and have followed.  

More than a meal but not really very nourishing. 

At some point, I had some many many stars

that I had to come up with a system for storage. 

Sure memory was one place 

but that lead to another problem. 

Because of the repeats, 

I was then constantly reminded 

of the themes in general and also the particulars 

of these gold expectation star as incidents. 

Privately, it became personally embarrassing. 

It seemed like I was an endless car wash of neediness. 

It was like I had no true sense of myself 

that was not reinforced by others 

meeting my superficial expectations ongoing. 

It was like we each had a contract with each other 

to meet each other’s expectations 

but in my case, I secretly kept getting gold stars 

for each instance. 

The apparent dependency on others 

for this silly positive reinforcement 

became a realization and a burden. 

It reminded me of when you repeat a phrase 

over and over, so much so 

that it has no meaning any more. 

It is just senseless babble. 

But I still have to deal with the gold stars as indelible 

and thus storage and that realization. 

I am not myself any more. 

I am a custodian who works for my expectant self-24/7. 

You’d think I could get fired or quit, but no. 

Expectations are like a human currency 

that we constantly exchange. 

It is a case of bad fairy godmother wishes 

to compensate for

low self worth that have gone horrible wrong. 

First the star thing made me sick,

then the gold made me sicker, 

then the glitter made me the sickest. 

If I see another expectation, it will be too soon. 

NO, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. 

Look, I have self worth, but I have little time now 

outside of expectancies and custodials. 

I am going to have to secretly move 

to some other source point awareness universe 

where expectations are not the norm 

or the primary means of consciousness.

Expectations, they’re everywhere. 

Have to live with them 

but certain to find a deeper self-wealth 

to not live by them . . .