The Mango Cocktail She Made

It took me almost a month to forgive her for something she had no idea she did to me. Month being a very long time considering the fact that I forgive quite quickly. I am someone who doesn’t hold grudges for long, either I react in the moment or if it’s too bad I just cut it out. Letting go of the disappointment makes me feel relieved, helps me move forward. Now coming back to ‘her’; she has been my friend, correction here, my ‘best friend’ since we were in our teens. A month ago, we got ourselves into a nasty situation, and somehow a ‘non-significant information’ came into light in a very inappropriate manner. Unexpectedly, it caught me off-guard and threw me aback immensely. In the heat of the moment I charged her with questions and explanation, answers to which did not convince me much. This girl here has always been in my closest emotional proximity, so it was but natural on my part to have certain expectations from her. I was disappointed or rather upset when it wasn’t met. You must be thinking, that there is nothing wrong, keeping in mind the relation she and I shared. I say, it was incorrect on my part.

Expectations from people and relationships have become such a conventional behaviour that we deem it to be normal. Most of us grow up listening to our parents and grandparents, teachers and concerned elders, telling us what they expect out of us, starting from rhymes and songs to behaviour and actions, grades at school, career choices, and what not. We have all heard “you can do better” “I have higher expectations from you” “you have lived up to my expectation” “this isn’t expected out of you”. Their intention not being to burden us, but only to push us a little more towards being better. What all of us fail to understand is the basic flaw of imagining false possibilities or rather ideologies of what we think ‘should be’ rather than what ‘could be’. When they somehow fail to measure up, we blame them in disappointment.

Every relationship has its own element that makes it unique from the others. 7.6 billion people in this world, with different characteristics and personalities, different everything! How on earth do we expect that they will be like what we want them to be? How just is it on our part to burden the person on the other end of the relation to measure up? Why do we imagine a certain relation to be something which we seem to be fit? Trying to fit every person in our mould of expectation will only take away their chance of being who they could be, not letting the relationship bloom and grow in its natural course.

“You are worth so much more than what came crashing down, You are the Mango Cocktail of my life!” by Renita Bhowmick

Our purpose of co-existing with our circles of proximity, our people; is to motivate and enhance one another, learn and grow together; not steer them in an idealistic direction. We should not and never look for fulfilment of expectations and completion of our ‘should be-s’ in or through others. By doing so we end up stepping out of the moment in the relationship, forgetting the person for who they are and smother them with what they should have been or done. We miss out on the possibility to let the person and the relationship unfold its beauty and uniqueness. We forget to accept when we are too busy to expect. We overlook the good that already exists and focus on what should have existed. We literally stop living in the moment! How silly of us to seek assurance and affirmation from our expectations. How pitiful it is to counter question the worth of our relationships when the expectations aren’t met. Sadly, we weigh what we invested in a person against what we think the person should have invested in us.

This piece of writing is not a result of my disappointment. It is a result of the ongoing questions I asked myself for all the grief I felt for someone who had no idea she hurt me. It is a realisation that enlightened me, and now is helping me detach myself from the vicious circle of expectations. What I have known about ‘her’ for more than 10 years went disregarded for something insignificant compared to her worth in my life. Somewhere I got caught up and forgot to notice how wonderful a person she has always been. I stopped being thankful, for how loving and supportive we have been to each other all throughout. Sadly, it wasn’t her who caused the damage, it was me burdening her with what I thought should have been her behaviour.

So, can we start letting it all be, letting others be who they freely want to be? Can we let the person love us their own way? Can we stop burdening one another with our ‘should be-s’ and give a chance to the ‘could be-s’? If there is one thing that I have learnt by now, it is – ‘Expectations do not guarantee us anything, what does; is the acceptance of what exists. Accepting the reality of the present situation and being thankful for all that we already have is what guarantees our happiness.’