Courage packs a question mark

Some expectations are plans.

Others are old bruises forecasting changes in the weather.

Maybe disappointments deserve a vote about our tomorrow.

But not a veto.

Q. - What is this?

A - Whatever we want it to be!

At a writers’ conference session called Bring Your Trauma, I expected to learn more about making fictional characters believable. I did.

I also got ambushed by a question about myself: how much of what I call expectation is simply old experience wearing tomorrow’s clothes?

I’ve had expectations all my life.

Some worked. Some collapsed. Some were probably pipedreams wearing business shoes. And some were shaped by something harder to measure: the absence of support, encouragement, or someone saying, “I can see that too.”

So, when expectations arrive now, are they forecasts, hopes, defences, or memories pretending to know the future?

What are yours made of?

I know, it’s not any easy answer to cough up.

Refer a friend