Probably one of the biggest disappointments there is.

You hear the possibility of a thing. You get excited, amped. Super amped! Prepare yourself. Count down the weeks, days, hours. Minutes. And finally it is here…

Oh but wait, it’s not!

Or well it kind of is but is not really the thing you expected or the way you expected it to go and so you maybe make some excuses and try and justify [on the other person’s behalf] but inside you are bummed. Super bummed. Deflated. Let down. Broken? Well, just a little bit. Sideswiped? For sure.

It’s like somebody [or something] pulled the rug out from beneath your legs and your whole body just went crumpling to the ground.

And you couldn’t get up. Well, not right away. Not as quickly as you might have hoped or liked. Had you expected this.

But you didn’t. It was a missed expectation.

They led you to believe that thing but then that thing didn’t happen exactly the way you felt them lead you to believe.

Was it malicious? No. Probably no. No, it probably wasn’t malicious. Probably wasn’t intentional. In fact there is a great chance that they never saw the expectation you had of that thing. They expected it to go a completely different way. They likely believed it would go the way it went. But that wasn’t exactly what they communicated to you.

That wasn’t how you heard it. That wasn’t quite exactly what they communicated. Or what you received anyways.

At least I hope not. The picture I received was a lot more exciting than this felt. The words that felt like promises which transformed, during autopsy, to ‘I would have liked. This would have been nice. This is the hope. This MIGHT be.’

Yes, but that wasn’t what you said. That wasn’t what you led me to believe.

None of that was how all of this was meant to be.

And you don’t even realise. And so you won’t own up to it. You won’t take responsibility. Because ‘you did nothing wrong.’

This becomes my thing. My little bag of sad to carry. To hold. To nurture. No, not to nurture, because I have to let go of it and move on.

I have to believe again. Have to hope again. Have to trust again.

Surely this time my expectations will be met…