Great expectations

'Sometimes I think I understand everything... and then I regain consciousness'.

So runs the post-script on the title bar of my chat msngr. I think I understand why I am here, isolated in my hotel room for the second consecutive day, working my third weekend in a row, passing up opportunities to spend time with friends the way I want... I get paid for it, right! This is a part of my job. I accepted the possibility of the occurrence of such situations when I signed the contract with the employer.

I think I understand why my folks cannot quite figure out, at the first instance, why I am almost screeching my frustration into the phone's mouth-piece... I gave them no warning! The last time that I called them, a week ago, I had assured them that everything was on track, that I would be home when they expected me. I also explicitly asked them not to call me. How would they know how the circumstances, perceptions changed?

I think I understand why my friends are almost shocked that I could be so rude, when I snap at them, hang up the phone without warning, refuse to respond to their concerned probing, make them look like the enemy... They are after all different from me. How would they know what's been going on in my head over the past week that I've not spoken with them? I didn't provide a context, did I?!

And yet, I expect! I expect to be elsewhere on my weekend, on a well-earned break! I expect that my folks would be able to tell that I'm not in the best of moods, and calm my agitation! I expect that my friends will call more often and check on how I'm doing, or at least promise to do so...

I get tired sometimes of being such a rational human being. "Logic", they say, is the ruin of the spirit. I don't want to be a robot that goes about the wordly motions based on what logical consequences of actions would dictate. I want to be a little irrational at times, to stop worrying about how I'm perceived by people around me. And I expect people to understand that! At least the ones who claim to know me... it can be too much to ask, I know. I might have hurt someone because of the expectation. I'm sorry, I really am. But I owe myself some honesty. And the truth is that I am only concentrating on myself, at least for now.

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"If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours; otherwise it never was. But if it just sits in your living room, messes up your stuff, eats the food you cook, uses your telephone, takes your money, and doesn’t appear to realise that you had set it free... then you either married it or gave birth to it!"