Expectation

Yesterday, I went where I knew no one would find me.

I spent time in Uru to escape everything, and to assure I wouldn't be disturbed, I went to one of the hardest and most difficult places to get to in Uru, the island of K'veer.   You see, you cannot reach K'veer without help from others and the excruciating journey to get there through an age called Ahnonay.

When my heart is troubled the most, I always go to K'veer and last night I sat in front of the large window in K'veer, looking out at the abandoned city.  All of the players in Uru expected so much from that world because it was one that transcended materialistic tendency and never even began to ask the question "What's in it for me?"

I sat looking out that window remembering all the time I spent solving puzzles and helping people.  Walking quiet forests where the quasi-cave paintings told a story of living without pride and humbly serving a greater good, aspiring to achieve noble goals.  How I miss that type of world.

To look out the windows of K'veer and realize that there is no such perfect place in the real world made me sad, and however much I take what I learned out of that cavern and shared it with others, I'd still be left with the overwhelming fact that well, the real world is a selfish, disappointing place with almost little to no nutritional value except when we take the time to search and find it.

I tried to replace the Uru cavern with other worlds, but in truth, they all proved disappointing, none worse than WoW.  Instead of the selflessness I was accustomed to, I found selfishness instead.  I was determined to not allow it to be that way, I stood and braced myself, reaching deep inside to the "deep city" (by the way, "Uru" is the Sumatran word that means deep city) inside myself to weather whatever selfish or prideful things I would encounter.  But, sitting looking out of the windows of K'veer last night, I realized that there is nothing in the world I can do but hold those things as inner strength for myself because most people will never get or understand what that means, much less apply it to every day life.

There have been may days I've sat sorely disappointed in people.  More often, I sit disappointed in myself.  For some reason unbeknownst to me, I expect people to have that same sort of moral inner fortitude that I do.  I don't know whether it's my addictions or my mentality that make me that way, but something inside me always aspires to do more, to be greater than what I am.    I see myself in the mirror as mediocre, so I always long to be something more, something better, to make some sort of difference in the world.  Part of me thinks it's a noble pursuit, other parts of me thinks it's an exercise in futility.

Most of my life I've gone through it thinking I was unloved.  Trust me, it's not a personal pity party I'm having, that's just how it has always seemed.  So, I compensate for it by giving all the love in my heart to whatever it is that I find worthy or worthwhile.  To me, if someone needs to feel believed in and I find that they truly need it, I tell them I believe in them, only for the sole reason that everyone needs to feel that.  I truly believe that everyone needs to felt valued and special for all of their unique qualities.  I know that people aren't perfect because I look in the mirror every day and see my own imperfections, so it does go to reason that everyone does have imperfections, some people have faults far greater than others, but it doesn't mean they are any less special in their own way.

I've been accused of putting people on pedestals.  That's so far from the truth it's not even funny.  No, when I believe in someone it's because I see, or more likely hope, that there is something deep inside of them that needs that special type of attention that only feeling believed in can bring forward. Trust me, it's no pedestal, it's the bar and mark of the standards that I hold them to because I know in my heart there is more to them than what they think is there.  Be it a strength that they don't show but I know they have, or just the simple action of letting them know they're not alone when they face a storm.  It's the knowledge that someone has your back and believes in you.  It's no pedestal, it's my way of doing for them what no one did for me which is push them to be more and to open their heart to possibly show the selflessness that is so rare in a world filled with selfish people.

But, maybe that's wherein my problem lies.  That I need someone to have my back, but in the immortal words of Bob Forrest, "I don't get that."  Fate, as it seems, has left me to fend for myself and forced me to realize the only person who has my back is me.  It's a lonely existence to say the least, but at times, it seems more than appropriate since I've been enabled all my life by the people around me that haven't had the courage or the inkling to realize that I had to do things to learn the lessons that create better survival skills.  Maybe this is fate's way of telling me that I don't need other people to love me, because if I just dig down and love myself that should be enough to carry me through even the roughest of storms.

But now, I'm faced with a quandary.  One that had me sleeping on my couch last night.  Here is my problem, and it's not the first time it's happened.  You see, for me, when I get involved in things, it's like a parade has come to town, the clown I am makes people laugh, pains are seen and soothed, there's dramatic high wire act under the circus big top, there's fun, but then, right in the middle of the fun, someone comes and tears down the entire thing.  Usually it's stress brought about by someone outside of my influence who is either jealous or selfish or some other horrid trait who breaks my heart, damages some 'noble' cause I'm pursuing and brings the entire thing to a halt.  Maybe it's because I try so hard to take care of everyone around me that I finally burn out.

When everything comes crashing down and I burn out, I usually view it as a time to humbly take a bow and then leave town, taking my travelling show elsewhere.  But last night, laying on the couch, I thought about how this is not the first time this has happened to me.  I thought about all of the people who depended on me and who's hearts were broken when my travelling show left for the next town.  I can only imagine how abandoned they felt.  That's what leaves me stuck.

I sat looking at the ceiling last night, thinking abut all of the special people I've known in my life who I've believed in and who have believed in me.  My friends Kathy and Susan immediately spring to mind when I think of the people who have been impacted when my travelling show has left town.  I can only imagine how abandoned they felt and that they don't know how I think about them every day.

Which brings me back to yesterday's post.  Even though people may cry innocent that they didn't do things, it doesn't excuse the fact that they did do the things that caused a mess, and no amount of lying or excuses can ever cover that up. The "Ant and the Boulder" parable is just that, those who think themselves innocent of the destructive things they've done, however unintentional.  However, in their decries and disbelief, they cause the one thing that they perhaps subconsciously wanted, for my travelling show to pick up and leave town.

But that takes us back to the poor innocent people squashed by the boulder in the middle of the road.  In my, "Love is the only truth and worth sharing every day" world, I'm so very tempted to help the people crushed when the boulder landed on top of them, but it leaves me at the quandary of do I help those crushed, or do I keep walking and ignore the whole thing because it hurts me to see people crushed and hurting?  Do I do what is in my addict nature and just push the whole thing away? Take my travelling show to another town and start over again?

All I know is that people keep disappointing me.  Not because I place them so high, but because I expect them to be of greater stature and intestinal fortitude, to be made of the 'sterner stuff' that I seem to have in excess.  Maybe I just keep placing my faith in the wrong people, that who I think are worthy of my belief are, as Tammy says, just not worth it.  I keep hoping in vain that more people will rise to the occasion to help others more than being mired down in their own self interest.

The world is so big, there are so many people in it.  Some people have more than others, some people have less, but what is so wrong with wanting to reach a hand out to someone who needs it?  Why are so many people in such a rush to take and not to give?

I guess I just expect too much from people.  I expect them to love and care about others as much as I do.  To solve problems, not ignore them, to step up and do the really hard work of thinking more about how they impact people versus "what's in it for them."  That's no pedestal, that's just called being held accountable.

Gods, how I'd love to pack up my travelling show and take it elsewhere, but the truth is, this time I'm just folding up the big top for good.  The part that breaks my heart is that I love being a part of a team, to contribute to something larger than myself but maybe no one can do that forever.

My heart breaks for all of my sweet guildies.  How abandoned they're going to feel, how they'll never know how much I believed in all of them.  That it was never about their toons, it was about who they were as people and how they enriched my life so much just by being sweet when I asked them, how they stopped cussing when I asked them, and how they shared so much with me every day and helped give me hope when I thought there was none.  They've been the ears when I've needed to talk, I've been the ears when they needed to talk and was the shoulder when they needed a shoulder to lean on.  I'm just sad that they'll never know that when I needed love, they were the ones who shared it every day with me.  All I know is that I feel helpless about it and have not one inkling of an idea of what to do about it.  One part of me says to gut it out, open up a can of "kiss my ass" and go take care of them, the other part of me has lost all hope that I can because the damage done seems so irreparable.  I feel so lost.  But the good news is that I'm doing it without self-medicating.

But enough of this dismal stuff.  It's the holidays.  I'm off this morning to go help my mother with preparations for Christmas Dinner.  Maybe I'll just take all that good positive energy inside and place it towards making delicious food, creating beautifully set tables, breathing in and out, and reside myself to the fact that the only difference I can ever make is the one in my own life.  After all, that's what needs work too isn't it?