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Great Expectations
As we approach the holiday season,
most people, if they think of Charles Dickens at all, think of his
immortalized Christmas Carol. But I think of another Dickens novel, Great
Expectations, one that most of us snoozed through at some point in high
school English. It’s the story of the orphan boy Pip who moves into the
upper echelons of nineteenth century English society and as one reviewer
noted, “Pip’s journey through life is a very refreshing look at how
distorted we let our lives become by focusing on the unimportant.”
Now, Great Expectations is a web
site for singles dating. But as the holidays approach, great expectations
are a universal phenomenon.
My partner reminds me daily when
December twenty-fifth approaches that what he wants for Christmas is, “a
big gift.” The big part is usually drawn out into a two or three
syllable word and my standard answer is, “You’re getting a big
gift—a big disappointment.” I suspect that what he wants is a new car,
but when I gave him a new Thunderbird more than a decade ago, he wasn’t
impressed. The fact that the Thunderbird was a bank with a slot on the top
for coins, and my Christmas note said, “Save your change and someday you
can buy one,” might have been part of the reason for his less than
enthusiastic response.
But great expectations aren’t
uniquely literary, nor are they exclusively seasonal. We all have them. I
was reminded of that recently while watching a rerun of Sex and the City,
a show that always has some great punch lines mixed with its over-the-top
stereotypical portrayal of sophisticated New York career women. Every
episode has a serious theme sweetened with humor. Separation, loss, death,
birth, redemption, unexpected responsibility—all come under the
spotlight of Carrie Bradshaw, the newspaper sex columnist who serves as
protagonist. Tucked away in the script are occasional gems worth savoring.
In the rerun I recently enjoyed
there was a scene in which Carrie was telling an editorial colleague about
her disintegrating relationship with a male friend. When Carrie expressed
her disillusionment the editor’s response was, “Stop expecting it to
look like what you thought it was going to look like.”
That’s a quote I don’t want to
forget. It rings true to my experience.
I can’t count the number of times
that when things have become fouled up with family relationships or with
friends— the sort of thing that results in separation and isolation
which makes the holiday season grim for millions of us—when the dust
finally settles I realize that the real source of my problem was my
unrealistic expectations. Carrie’s editor friend could have been
speaking to me. “Stop expecting it to look like what you thought it was
going to look like.”
As I was growing up I saw my
relationship with my father as distant and cool. I was well into my
forties before I was able to reevaluate that relationship and recognize
that what I wanted in a father was a teddy-bear, a playmate, a listener, a
hugger. I wanted a close warm and fuzzy relationship, the kind that I
fantasized other kids in the neighborhood had with their dads. I wanted
the Dad who would play ball with me and go to the parent teacher’s
conferences and the school plays.
That’s not what I got. My father
was a Pennsylvania German blue-collar worker who kept food on the table,
clothes on my back, and a roof over my head, which, during the Great
Depression of the 1930s, was no small feat. He fulfilled the expectations
of the culture and tradition that shaped his life and, as I later
realized, the qualities required to fulfill my expectations of closeness
and affection weren’t his to give.
Ironically, when I finally realized
that the root cause of the emotional distance I perceived to be between us
was my unrealistic expectations, I was able to see my father in a
different light and the closeness and warmth I had wanted as a child began
to develop.
Also, as a parent, when my own
children were young, I had to recognize that some of the expectations I
had for myself were unrealistic. Attempting to be the good father, I
purchased all the rods and lines and plugs required to take my kids
fishing. Somehow, in my mind, taking your kids fishing was one of my
expectations of being a good father.
After several disastrous attempts,
I was forced to acknowledge that I didn’t even like fishing. To me it
was boring and a waste of time. There was no way I could instill in my
children a love for a sport that I hated. If they were ever to enjoy
fishing it would have to be through sharing the experience with someone
who enjoyed it. I was incapable of meeting my own expectation.
Similarly, I’ve been in
relationships where my expectation of exclusivity set the stage for
disaster. In the nether world of getting-to-know-you, which plagues all
intimate relationships, male and female, gay and straight, lack of a
mutual understanding of, and acceptance of, each partner’s expectations
is a sure-fire recipe for disaster.
A Washington couple whom I’ve
known for many years, and who have been together for more years than
I’ve known them, recently faced the dilemma of resolving the fact that
one partner had expected the relationship to be sexually exclusive; his
partner had not. A lot of the subsurface frustration and anger that had
plagued their relationship over the years began to dissipate when they
reworked their expectations with professional guidance.
The holiday season is particularly
prone to great expectations. Kids expect gifts and they may end up
euphoric or disappointed as they tear the wrappings to shreds. Adults
expect invitations to parties and warm family gatherings, and they may end
up euphoric or disappointed as the holiday season grinds on.
But keeping in mind the editor’s
advice to Carrie, “Stop expecting it to look like what you thought it
was going to look like,” is a marvelous tool to help us through the
holiday season and the year ahead.
John Siegfried, a former Rehoboth resident who
now lives in Ft. Lauderdale, maintains strong ties to our community and
can be reached at hsajds@aol.com.
John Siegfried, a former Rehoboth resident who now lives in Ft.
Lauderdale, maintains strong ties to our community and can be reached at hsajds@aol.com.
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