Expectations.

“The second first time” - a devastatingly beautiful ache. The telling of how each disappointment doesn’t just sting... it rewrites the memory of hope.

From every angle of Wisteria’s perspective, she felt the weight of unmet expectations shape her, how can she bear this burden, but not let it break her.

The very Innate Nature of Expectations...is that they are born not in the mind, but in the space between longing and belief. Expectations are the pulse of possibility... the architecture of imagined outcomes , built on invisible scaffolds.

They echo memory, mimic past wounds, whisper promises through veiled lips. They are silent choreographers of behavior, subtly dictating joy and disappointment , long before the stage is set.

Yet they evolve. Mutable as mist, steered by experience, challenged by truth.

When unmet, they bruise. When exceeded, they exalt.

And sometimes...they simply dissolve, not because reality failed, but because the soul outgrew the script.

.........

Beneath the Crown and Diadem...

She had grown, had stopped waiting for stars to fall the way they were promised. Expectations once bloomed around her, floral, fragrant and naive. Now, each wilted petal felt like déjà vu with sharper edges.

Disappointment never surprised her.

But it always hurt as though she hadn’t tasted it before.

Every hope was reborn as a quiet rebellion~~~not loud, not violent...just bitter.

A defiance against the whispers of “should” and “soon.” She began archiving her longings, labeling them fragile, irrelevant, never again.

Bitterness didn’t make her brittle. It made her discerning. The fire beneath the frost.

She knew the sweetness of expectation was a trick of the tongue, but still, sometimes, she reached for it. Not because she believed...but because something in her refused to forget... that belief once felt real.

......

Expectations are as whimsical, elusive and fanciful as hoping for time to stand still and listen to our bemoanings...as unlikely to be fulfilled as it is for Cinderella being Ebony-Chocolate and fitting inside a pumpkin drawn by princely horses. An ebony princess plucked from the cinders by a fairy godmother, whisked to the Ball and winning the heart of Prince Charming.

Gurl, you had better build your own chariot and hie yourself to the Ball, quite hastily.

Get that metaphor of a prince all on your own.

It could happen. Right!

So too, could, can all of my expectations be fulfilled.

Youth was filled with wide-eyed wonder and - well...Expectations. Conquer the mountains...fall in love with a gallant knight, live the dream...grow old together and sway into the good night in matching rocking chairs under twilight amber golden skies.

In between would be joy filled moments captured in stunning pictures of the world well travelled, true friends and smiling happy munchkins flitting here and there.

The First Second Time. The Second First Time. Rinse...Repeat.

What have I expected of life, Wisteria wondered ~ Let me count the ways.

~~I expected to not be born into anonymity...poor and wanting for everything.

~~I expected to not have to work so damned hard for everything. Breaking my spirit every time, like the first time every time. Second time. First time...it all somehow became relative.

Relative: in need of meaning, value, or nature being determined by a comparison to something else, rather than being absolute or independent. It implies a dependence on context and a lack of inherent, fixed properties.

Maybe I should not be comparing...for therein lies the paradox. Is it that I should just accept the whatever for what it is. Just the world going around in circles...same old, same old...Whatever will be will be...Que sera sera.

Should I then have no expectations?

Yet!

🎭 Expectations, by their very nature, are the shadows cast by desire on the wall of the future. They aren't just predictions...they're projections, shaped by hope, fear, memory, and identity.

RINSE - REPEAT - REMEMBER

The Innate Nature of Expectations

They are born not in the mind, but in the space between longing and belief.

Expectations are the pulse of possibility... the architecture of imagined outcomes built on invisible scaffolds.

They echo memory, mimic past wounds and whisper promises through veiled lips.

They are silent choreographers of behavior, subtly dictating joy and disappointment long before the stage is set.

Yet they evolve.

Mutable as mist, steered by experience, challenged by truth.

When unmet, they bruise. When exceeded, they exalt.

And sometimes... they simply dissolve, not because reality failed, but because the soul outgrew the script.

....

We can keep spinning our tale across time~~~watch the world mutate, watch our legacy thread into myths and blueprints. Or we could explore what kind of world blossoms and rest for a moment in the hush we sowed.