I realized that I am not posting these for the right reasons, these are becoming pretty selfish. I have these epiphanies whether it be a work with a client, watching something online or talking to people. I get these little nuggets and I think I could expand on them. I know my editor must hateee me for being late on entries but sometimes I just need some inspiration because this writer's block is something serious. With ALL of that being said, I was watching something dealing with the subject of unmet expectations.

Now, if you were to ask me what unmet expectations meant to me when I was 18 I would've just been like, "When a boy ends up being a player and you thought he was sweet." And now at 22 the difference in understanding is astounding.

The value that we place on titles of people. Whether it be best friend, boyfriend, mother. We have an idea of what that is suppose to be to us. We have these preconceived notions of who people are in our lives. We have an expectation. And sadly once it's not met or that person doesn't "do" for us what we expect, we are a wreck. We harbor resentment and project our own issues onto someone not fulfilling that place of whatever pedestal we have put them on. We have these voids and as long as those people fill them we are content.

I have personally done this pertaining to my mother. I had so many expectations of who she should of been. Comparison is truly the thief of joy. I had this idea of who she was supposed to be. I saw my other friends' parents and I thought, wow, this is what she is "supposed" to be like. When in reality a person can only pour out to the extent of which they themselves have been poured into. Let me say it a different way. Some people can only do what they have been shown. So in the time I spent judging, critiquing and shaming my mother for not being a "mother" in my eyes. I never stopped to realize, she truly was only doing what she knew. I think that's all do, we do the best we can with what we have.

The next part of this and what really allowed me to jumpstart the healing process when it came to her was realizing she was not sent on this earth solely to be my mother. Now, stay with me. We all have such a unique journey and path to take. She had so many things to do with her time on this earth, ONE of them was to give life to me but it was not her ultimate destination. It was an assignment within a season but that was it. Her job all in all was to bring my life into the world and her doing that was "mother" enough. This helped me have such a greater understanding to truly forgive because once I realized that her life was not devoted to me and my wellbeing it helped me shift focus to whom I truly belong. For years I had so much hate in my heart towards someone because I felt as if I was owed. I attached her to her title, I made her a monument and expected her to stay there. But the problem with deciding who someone is, you dead them from ever becoming anything else.

So many people would be so much quicker to forgive and slower to shame if they understood that people are on their own journey. I am SO GRATEFUL for what my "mother" did throughout my childhood. If it had not been for the pain and disappointment I would never truly understand joy and gratefulness. Because of her, I have a strength I never knew existed, a resistance I didn't even know I possessed and a love for others that deepens as time presses on. No, she didn't give me those traits but in spite of her, I grew them.

Unmet expectations can leave so much room for resentment and bitterness. Once we relinquish people to who they are and not who we want them to be we begin to see them in their own light and not through our own lens. The journey of healing and forgiveness is an unending one but ultimately starts and finishes with the same person, you.