Hate To Break It To You But Your Expectations Truly Are The Root Of Your Heartache

“Expectations are the root of all heartache.” — Shakespeare

Here’s the thing, you expect others to treat you with the same amount of love, respect, and compassion as you deliver, but that’s just not the case. This is where you’re different. So, how many disappointments will it take for you to walk away? For you to realize that you deserve better than what has been given to you after all these years. How long do you allow your heart to hang heavy within your chest, answering each how are you with a simple “I’m fine.”

I get it. You like the idea of living in the light of raw vulnerability, but everything to leave your fingertips is polished because you’re scared of what will happen when the brick wall you built finally crumbles. While that is valid given your history, it is no way to live. You’ve been more honest with a roomful of strangers than the people who stand by you because it’s easier to expose your heart to a group of strangers you may never see again.

Because you’ve had these words sitting on the tip of your tongue for a month but never quite found the courage to open your mouth because you’ve done that before. You’ve laid everything out in the open and allowed your heart to fall in someone else’s hands only to be disappointed. Only to discover this person is not ready for the universe that is you. So you started to silence yourself, toned down the bits of you that you believed were the most exquisite of all because a few people couldn’t handle it.

The most heartbreaking part, through all of the hurt, you only blamed yourself.

You never attached the blame to the name of the individual who caused it because you’ve always known humans are flawed creatures. You’ve always supplied love, patience, and understanding because you know how it feels to be told your feelings are invalid. For the mistakes you’ve made to be thrown back in your face when you’re only trying to grow and you refuse to be a part of that cycle.

While it may appear like I’ve gone on a wild tangent, it loops back around.

You’re just tired and a little lost, trying to figure out how everything in your own life falls together.

You don’t take much time to truly process the shit that goes on in your mind, at least not over the past month, because you haven’t taken the time to write things out. Rather you’ve pushed it to the back of your mind or escaped to the ocean or mountains just to scream. Or maybe you’ve just been way too caught up in your responsibilities of life and taking care of everyone else that this whole time you’ve been neglecting yourself. Because as you type this your eyes begin to swell and a tear drips down your cheek. Because it’s been a while since you’ve felt the way you do and if you tried to put it into your words, you wouldn’t be able to.

You would simply say, “I feel off and I don’t feel like myself.”

Always remember that here’s always a world buried beneath the surface of a person, a world kept hidden to the outside world. Show kindness, show love, always.