I've decided that I don't like expectations very much. It may seem a pretty random idea to contemplate, but it just wandered into my mind like a lost puppy looking for shelter.
It started when I was small, in primary school. I expected my classes to be easy, which they were. I had pretty much cruised through those few years, with good grades, practicing music, and playing sports. I felt on top of the world, that I had everything. I expected life to be this easy.
Needless to say, I was wrong.
As I got older, my expectations grew taller. These expectations turned into pressure and stress, which eventually morphed into defeat.
Now let me retell the story of expectations.
It started at the end of last academic year, when it became very apparent that I wasn't going to get very good grades. I was going to get average and mediocre grades. Which, in my history of grades, is a disappointment to my mother. From constant A's, to suddenly get a C in my most important year before college is just not acceptable. It made my family, or rather, my mother very very disappointed, and that disappointment often turned into anger.
She often yelled at me, went on moody rampages and rages of silence. Things started looking pretty bleak when I realised the aspect of academics, which I had always maintained a tight grip on, was beginning to slip out of the creases of my fists. It was the first time I found anything to be "difficult".
New things have always been... Reachable. Within my grasp. Learning the piano. Playing football. Doing maths. Although not the best, I can do these things without too much trouble, at a level acceptable to myself and my mother, so I never tried to be the best. That was too much effort. It was enough for me to stick my fingers in all the different flavoured jars, not bothering to savour each individual taste properly. When I started facing IB, I expected the new things I'm learning to be the same. Reachable. But it wasn't. I stood on my toes, jumped, freakin' parkoured off a wall to bound even higher, but I still couldn't reach.
It was only just last year when I realised my achievements in primary school meant absolutely nothing. No one cares if you graduated top of your year six class. That's much too insignificant. No one really cares how well you do in secondary school either, as long as you can get into college. The only thing that matters now is how well you do in college. Future employers are not going to care how well you did in highschool, just your college degree and your GPA.
As I said, expectations turned into stress and anger. I studied external reference material for biology. I wrote notes on chemistry. I watched video tutorials on economics. But I learnt nothing. Nothing stuck in my head. I started getting desperate. Mum didn't really help. Dad helped less. Basically, family didn't help. Eventually, I just gave up.
I started a war against my mother, and it became a terrible mess to live at home. I contemplated running away, but I have no where to run to. I asked to be put into the boarding house, but questions would be raised and it was illogical to pay so much for it when I live half an hour away from school. The most comfortable place in my house turned out to be my bathroom. I took naps curled on the floor. I read lying on the tiles. I even read in the shower, a book clipped in between the fingers of my left hand while my right hand did all the work scrubbing the body. The bathroom turned out to be the only place I could relax without being questioned. There are endless lies I could use. "I take a long time showering because my hair is long." "I had an upset stomach." "The water in the shower just shut off." "I ate something funny today." "I had a nosebleed in the shower." The last one's my favourite.
Why didn't I just take naps and read in my bedroom, or anywhere in the house? I get questioned. I get stared at by my mother. She just stands there, looking at me, as if I've done something horrible, a look of disgust on her face. Her face said it all. My daughter the failure. The only and black sheep of the house. She shocked me out of my naps, told me to go and do something productive, when it's impossible in my sleepy state. Then she complained when I do things half-assed. She recited conversations that she expected to have with me, corrected my sentences in the way I "should have" said them. Even after I thought really hard and said something I thought was acceptable, I get shot down. The psychological burden she was burning into me became too unbearable, and I snapped. I stopped studying. I stopped listening to her. I switched off the tears she used to set off whenever we argued, which goes on a near daily basis. I've decided that studying was to make my mother happy, that I was a trophy she showed off to her friends. So I gave up.
I was planning to go back to Taiwan, back to my father. Over summer break between the two years of IB, I visited him, hoping to broach the subject of moving in with him and starting a new life. I was left alone with my stepmother for a bit when my dad went to park the car. In that ten minutes, she guilt tripped me into a state of near tears, and I had to prevent myself from blinking, to prevent the tears from spilling out of my eyes. She told me how often my dad talked about me, and how he always tells my little half brother how great and smart I was. She said jokingly that my dad favoured me more than my brother. At that point, I've decided to scratch the idea of moving back to Taiwan. The fear of being a failure yet again to my father instead of my mother this time was too much.
I came home to Malaysia and spent the first night crying myself to sleep and hugging my dog. Actually, that's not true, I released him after about five minutes, because he doesn't like people holding him too long. Insensitive lil' dog.
Even after I got past all the hurdles of life in Malaysia, I was hit in the face with a new set of expectations in the US. Grades is a must, obviously, but I haven't really started trying. Social life started to play a big part in my life, because... I'm constantly in it. There's hardly ever a moment I can get to myself when I'm not alone or next to my suitemates or friends. Heck, I sleep with a friend in the same room. I had told myself not to get too attached to friends there, but failed myself almost instantly. Like, the day I got there. Then, I started creating my own expectations for my friends, and I got very upset when these expectations weren't met.
I molded a vision of my friends instead of really looking at them, telling myself how infinitely wonderful and amazing they are, not realising how tired out I am when I'm with people. I felt obliged to act a certain way with certain people, and some days feel like an all-day acting class. I began to want them to act a certain way to match me, and tried to distance myself when I go into one of my "I hate people" phases. Then, I realised how hypocritical I was being. I can't just expect people, more importantly, my friends to act the way I want them to. Did they really "change" throughout the year, or are they just not fitting the profile I made for them? Are they not just being how they usually are, when I'm being cranky and fool myself into thinking they're out to destroy my life? I can't just expect them to know exactly when I want to be left alone, and then get mad at them for talking to me.
It got very depressing when I lost faith in my family, my friends and myself.
Fuck expectations.
