WHO I AM

i have a fear of disappointing people. i don't fear that i will do it, i know i will. i don't fear that it will hurt the person or people who i disappoint. i know it will. it's just this vague fear.....

it drives me to spend time trying to distance people so that they won't excpet too much, and if they do, i will be less hurt by their hurt because of the distance.

it drives me to give up on things i enjoy and excel in because all-too-soon people start noticing and expecting more and better. and i don't want to disappoint.

it's not that i can't live up to people's expectations. often, i believe i could surpass them. but even more often, i simply don't want to. i don't want to excel in everything i could excel in. i have my own desires and my own ideals, and very often they do not coincide with anyone else's, leading me to give up on things i could do to try the next thing that catches my fancy. leaving the people who had big expectations for me to disappointment and confusion.

so why?

why do i have this intense fear of expectations and disappointing people?

...because it brings to startlingly painful relief the inadequacy i have been running from for the last 4 years.

i will never be good enough. i will never be enough. i will never be what was expected. i can never be what was expected. i am someone else.

parents, the people who we all have a craving to please often, and naturally, have expectations, ideas, hopes, and dreams of who their children will be. no wonder that they train their children the way they do. but no parent who trains their child to think for themselves can fully expect that child to think exactly like they do. but in our own ways, we all think we are right. so a parent trains his child to think, and assumes that the child will, given time, learn to think the same way he does. is it not then, a failure in the parent's eyes to see his child take a different path, a different worldview, a different religion, a different life-style?

all children can see that this is not right. all parents know that it is human.

but the child who was raised to think for herself, must think for herself.

must choose her own path. must chosoe her own worldview. must choose her own religion. must choose her own life-style.

yet somehow, to be a disappointment to the people who made her, raised her, and taught her to think, is almost too painful to consider.

4 years ago, without even thinking about it, i began to make my own deicisions regarding the things that i considered important. subtly at first, and then mor obviously, these decisions began to show the widening differences between me and my parents. i was mad at them, they were hurt by me. somewhere along the way my anger turned into mistrust. mistrust of everything they had taught me - except to think for myself. and i felt that their hurt had turned into disappointment.

now, i feel it haunting me everywhere i go.

is it real? are they truly disappointed in me? would they admit it if they were? would they be even more disappointed if they knew me better?

i try to not think about it. i try to truly think for myself. i try to live they way i think is the best way for me to live.

but at every step, at every turn in the path i've chosen, i know i am not the person they wanted me to be. i have failed them. i have disappointed them.

i never meant to...

i didn't try to disagree. i didn't try to be someone else. i simply am. WHO I AM, is a disappointment to the 2 people i am hardwired to respect and long to please.

there is no one else in the world who i can feel the same way about as i feel about my parents, so there is no one else who it bothers me quite so much to disappoint. but every time i see the look of hurt, confusion, or disappointment, all i can think is: "THIS IS WHO I AM. i hurt people. i disappoint people. WHO I AM is a failure."

kinda sucks.