Expectations of Grandeur

I believe whole heartedly that happiness is something you find and/or make for yourself. It isn't something anyone else can just give to you. No one else should be held responsible for maintaining your inner smile but you. A lover or friend may be able help you maintain it from time to time but ultimately that is an insanely large demand to place on someone. Only you can determine how you feel about yourself and that feeling is a large part of how happy you are in life.

However, this is not a piece about happiness. It's a piece about expectations. More specifically; what we expect from our friends and lovers in the pursuit of happiness. We all want terminal relationships. We never go into it considering an end. We have this til death do us part ideal, hence the term terminal. We expect one person to go the distance with nary a rest stop in sight.

Ask yourself how much you've changed as a person since just last year. Imagine the transition if you will from a perky teenager to a married adult. Big difference huh? We learn something new each day, and grow just a bit more. We have epiphanies and revelations and astonishing moments of clarity that redefine us constantly. We may retain the same mannerisms or style for great lengths of time but still other facets of ourselves change and evolve every day that we are upright atop the ball that revolves.

Is it fair to expect someone to understand this process while they too are undergoing it? Two people who are the sums of their thoughts and experiences which are completely different events and perceptions can compliment each other and have astounding similarities. At some point there will always be a difference of opinion, or opposing goals and ambitions.

We seldom realize that what we need comes from a network of people not just one. We need a confidante and a best friend. We need people to go places and do things with. We need to have someone who always makes us laugh and another who wipes our tears. Kind of like the saying it takes a community to raise a child, it takes a network to balance the many needs of emotional/mental health and happiness.

I made the mistake once, of thinking that one person was all I needed. I had such a hard time understanding why that one person couldn't be my lover, best friend, confidante, ego booster, partner, support system, and dinner date at the same time, all the time. Because I honestly believed I had been all of those things to him all along.

One day I saw a commercial where this little elderly couple was sitting on a porch with drinks before them. The old man looks at the woman and shoots his straw paper at her. My husband said to me "That will be us in 20 years." That was the most frightening idea I had ever heard. I thought dear god will I really have to keep doing this job for decades? I wondered if I would have to continue sacrificing my soul until death really did us part.

As much as I loved that person and as much time as I had invested in him, I understood how linear relationships are and just how much is also expected of us from just one person. I too expected everything from him and realized he wasn't holding up his end. The thing is that isn't necessarily his fault-- he was making the same mistake as me right along. We expected too much. We also held one relationship to high above all the others that were equally important. Friends, family and even those who oppose us tend to motivate us to rise to the challenge if only to shove it in someone's face. We need interaction with a variety of people to meet our individual needs.

This realization was a major step in my understanding that happiness doesn't come easy it must be worked for and isn't something anyone else can give us… let alone just one person. Somehow I doubt that revelation made me any less demanding, but I think I finally found the road leading to my path of happiness. Only I can walk this road but there are many stops along the way with a variety of people who affect me in a variety of ways and make me one whole multi-faceted person. Along that road some relationships will end not all of them can last a life time and we aren't always allowed to choose which and/or how long.