Expectations

Yesterday I was annoyed with my husband.

This was the situation:

It was Saturday.

Jeremy had told me a few days earlier that he was going to work on his dirt bike and wash the Jeep on Saturday. In my mind, I had assumed that would take place later in the day, perhaps after we laid around in bed for a few hours and had breakfast together.

So when I woke up on Saturday morning to an empty bed, I was confused. Jeremy texted me that he was out changing the oil on his bike, exactly like he had told me he was going to.  I entertained myself for the rest of the morning, and then started to get annoyed that he wasn’t home yet, since I wanted to spend time together.

He ended up coming home around 4pm, which was when we were supposed to leave to go over to a friends house for dinner. He came home in a rush, showered and was ready to go with barely a hello kiss.

I was moody and annoyed, feeling like he was ignoring me and not meeting my emotional needs. I was thinking that he needed to apologize and be more romantic and affectionate since I had missed spending time with him all day.

As we were in the car driving to meet our friends, I realized that I was upset because he had not met my expectations. Expectations that I had not communicated to him. Expectations that were different than his expectations for the day.

I had expected to spend the morning with him before he went out to work on his bike. He had expected to work on his bike all day and run errands, which he thought he had communicated to me already.

Neither one of us was wrong, we had just not understood each others expectations of the other person.

Expectations

One month ago today I turned 24 years old.

Jeremy and I on my 24th birthday

This is the first time in a long while that I’ve had a birthday where I don’t feel my age.

It’s not so much the concret things. I think my current life lines up well with what I want at 24 years old; I’m married, have my own apartment and I’m finishing up graduate school.

But I don’t feel like I’m 24. I guess I just thought I would be more mature and have all the answers. I think of somebody who is 24 as an adult, fully out of the experimental/dramatic/immature early 20’s college phase.

But I don’t have all the answers. I don’t feel like I have life experience.

Maybe that’s because I am still in college. I haven’t really lived in the “real world” yet. I’ve never held down a full time job and I don’t have a career yet.

And even though I’m married, and have been for 4 years, it’s almost a protective factor that keeps me from fully experiencing life. I’ve never had to live alone, pay my own bills, buy a car by myself, etc. I’ve had a partner in my life since I was a teenager. Don’t get me wrong, I love Jeremy for being my partner, but not having to face life alone keeps me sheltered.

Maybe that’s why I still feel so young at 24, so inexperienced.

Although, in other ways, I feel advanced for my age.

Like at work. I’m 24 and I’m a therapist. People come in and pay me money to help them solve their problems in life. Even though it’s just an internship right now, for all intents and purposes, I am working as a professional in a career at a pretty young age. I’m treated with respect and considered as competent as the paid staff.

Maybe it all comes down to expectations. What I expected I would be like, what my life would be like, at 24. Were those expectations realistic? What were they founded on?

So next year, when I turn 25, I’m not going to expect anything from myself. As long as I’m happy, I’ll consider 25 a good age for wherever I am in life.