Conversations with disappointment

Disappointment:
Noun. sadness or displeasure caused by the non-fulfillment of one's hopes or expectations.

When we think of disappointment, we think of a momentary feeling in reaction to an event. You quickly forget and move on. However as you age, these feelings weigh a little more heavily. It's the building up of the non-fulfillment of dreams, of not living the life you wanted, pressured by the realisation you are running out of time. The small prick will rise up from time to time, reminding you of what you missed, what might have been.

In the daily machinations of life, you merrily float along but sometimes, out of surprising places, an urgency takes hold. You are disappointed, not in others, not in what life has given you, but in yourself. You have allowed the non-fulfillment of dreams. You have put everyone else first only to wake up and discover you've put yourself last. Your needs are last, your feelings matter least, your desires are inconvenient but only because you have prioritised them that way. You have become the afterthought in your own life.

All those missed opportunities. All those unfulfilled dreams. Piling up around you.

Ellen Hopkins wrote this poem in which she sums up the outcome of disappointment perfectly (and I'm embarrassed to say I found it on Good Reads).

“Disappointment

Can do a couple things.
It can drop you into a giant
sucking sinkhole of

depression,

a place you have to fight
to climb out of. Or it
can trigger an epic

mania

to overcome the odds
and transform failure
into success. "

I have woken up to realise my hourglass is emptying and it is time for the mania. I need to make things happen. I need to make sure I'm attending to some of my dreams  Obviously with kids, there are certain things that have to take precedence. Some things are unavoidable. Time is limited and plans often have to be cancelled. However I can insist I allocate more attention to what I need to do, or at least attempting it. I am the culprit. I am the one who needs to change. I am the one who has created the disappointment if I feel it.

And I will no longer do so.

To quote the wonderful Kurt Vonnegut "Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.” or in short, it sucks to be old, you run out of excuses.

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