You wanted fields of seeing tulips in bloom. There were buds. You were having one of those deep days of thought. Have you had those? “Oh, this is like my life, not fully blooming, not what I expected my life to be by now.”
You were on the hunt that day to find full blooms. You found yellow daffodils. Not thrilling since you grew daffodils at home or saw them in the neighborhood. You wanted what you wanted…fields of blooming tulips.
Ok. So what you learned again, is your expectations can darken a day. You have a part of you that also doesn’t take in what is and thinks the experience you had wasn’t enough. You wanted more. Are you driven, YES.
Are you an active thinker, YES. Do you fall easily into vulnerability, NO.
Do you let a part of you cloud your day, by the unrealistic young self who will always want the experience to be more, YES. Thank goodness you know yourself and can say, “Alright, you had your air time. Bye bye. Thanks for sharing.” Perfection has left the room. Unrealistic behavior has quieted.
Appreciation has blossomed, again. How, because you practice shifting behavior in the moment.
Expectations can mask beauty. Beauty of living. At the same time your adult stage of life practices carrying the hope and the reality of what is.
You want to raise your bar and hope for what you hope for whether that is a vacation that you spent weeks planning, a relationship that you hope will bring more growth and joy, a job that satisfies and challenges, a home that makes you smile when you walk through the door. Key is to be with what is right in front of you and be sad if that too visits your heart. Carry both at the same time. Paradoxes and ranges of thoughts and feelings are normal.
Communication is your thing. The expectation that others have that thing as a priority is false expectation. You don’t like it and yet it is what it is. They don’t communicate as you do. You don’t have to like that and you don’t have to ruin your day because you didn’t get what you wanted. You do get to feel what you feel no matter what. Probably you won’t get that behavior from that person. You don’t like that realization and that is part of why you keep the hope and the expression of your need. You can teach it and yet can’t make them drink it. They don’t bloom when you want them to bloom after all the tending, feeding, and care you gave them. They say they want that communication too, and yet no new behavior. Sound familiar? Some seeds never bloom. What do you do with emptiness? What do you do with hurt and disappointment? Feel it. Self- comfort. Seek help. Pause. Open to clarity on its time, not your personality time.
Not what you expected. You thought if you voiced your needs, role modeled, checked in with yourself and them, you might receive that need. Ya, well, might is the detached word. Now you get to decide what to do to care for yourself, and how to be with not getting what you need. Is the pain more than the gain?
Clients share these disappointments and hopes. That sharing is their new journey of being in the unknown, practicing tolerance and moving into change. They begin to look out a different window rather than a closed one.
They weep. They be. They go within for comfort and clarity. They pause.
They reach toward a friend for love.
Unbloomed tulips. Who knew they would trigger unbloomed needs?
May you take in the simplicity and awe of beauty and allow expectations to be
awareness of different parts of you.
Natalie
www.emptynestsupport.com
818-763-0188
Featured in TIME MAGAZINE, NY TIMES, LIFETIME RADIO FOR WOMEN, LA TIMES, USA TODAY, WASHINGTON POST, BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS
Change is inevitable. Get Ready. Get Support. Life transitions need a hand to hold.
Natalie Caine, M.A. natalie@lifeintransition.org
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