Conversations over Coffee

Conversations with Disappointment

If there was one thing she knew about herself, with absolute certainty, it was that disappointment marked the end.

Not the end of all things. Not the end of family holidays in the sun. Not the end of babies becoming toddlers becoming little boys. Not the end of great loves lived to their fullest.

Disappointment marked the end of some friendships she once cherished. People she once kept in her inner circle. Priorities that once defined her.

The cycle she went through was not one she sought to change. She accepted, embraced it even, as a pillar she could lean against and know that she wouldn’t be let down. The pillar would hold her up, keep her from slumping to the ground in a despair out of her control.

Anger was easy. Anger she thrived on. When things would turn upside down, anger was an out, a resolution, a way to fix it. Work through the anger she would say to herself. Thrash it out. Move out of the way so it could explode at the surface and leave calm in its wake.

For her, friendships could work after anger. She found forgiveness and peace after anger. But not disappointment. Sometimes when the anger passed disappointment lay in its wake. Staring at her, almost as if they were both dumbfounded to be there.

Disappointment did not negate love and it did not negate hate. Disappointment simply closed the door behind her. Turned the lock. Safely tucked away the key into her pocket as she walked away.

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Few things in her life live in the box of disappointment. Thankfully, very few. But the ones that do mark a chapter that is not only closed. Wax sealed around the edges keeps her from ever opening those chapters again.

A small hope flickers, dim, feint and distant, that one day a new chapter may start for that friendship, that person, a new moment. But the old chapters will always collect dust on the shelf of her life, purposefully kept out of reach.

A certain melancholy hums as she thinks about those books on that shelf. The disappointment feels lighter and lighter as time passes. The realisation that they did not mark something broken or destroyed, but merely something she did not need anymore. Perhaps that was what made the parting easier. Knowing she was better off this way.

Each time disappointment taught her a new lesson. The lesson of accepting fault. The lesson of not shifting blame. The lesson of forgiving herself. Sometimes the lessons were new. Often the lessons were the same. New parables spoken in different ways.

She had a symbiosis with disappointment that she did not seek to change. She knew that disappointment would always be her companion. A co-author to some of the stories she would write. Some of the stories she would end. Some of the stories that had not even started yet.

What is your relationship with Disappointment?

 

Conversations over Coffee returns Tuesday August 30, 2016
Conversations with the Wedding Dress ~ everyone is welcome xx

Linking up with #IBOT
Catch up on my last blog post One Word

 


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