What can I expect?

I’ve been thinking about expectations a lot lately. What can I reasonably expect from someone I love?  What can I reasonably expect from myself in grief? What can I expect from my creative outlets when I work full time and have jam-packed weekends for the past few weeks?

I expected more from myself in the writing realm. I unrealistically expected more polished entries every day. What I’ve produced is a lot of sh*tty first drafts. The lingering feeling of not quite measuring up to my own expectations is requiring me to reframe the daily output and reassess the goals I set. Writing daily pushes me. It allows me to build more writing muscle. I am showing up. That is not nothing.  I had hoped for more storytelling with each day’s entry. I’m boring myself and feel like I am saying the same thing again and again.

My experience with expectations is that the lower they are the better I move through life. If I’m honest, even this disappoints me. Why must life go more smoothly when I can expect nothing more than bargain low expectations from others and myself?

It seems to me this is self-protective and maybe a little self-fulfilling. Yet, basement level expectations does seem to work.

When I reconsider that I am amassing thousands of words in a few weeks and material I can revisit and delve into more deeply with time and space, well, that’s something to celebrate and not devalue.