Great Expectations

I entered the world of adults with great hopes very low expectations for myself. I did not know it at the time. It is only hindsight that makes the lack of plans, goals and expectations clear.

It was not enough to simply do, advance, succeed, get better, perform better, earn better, live better. I needed a plan. I did not plan. My motivation and objective was one and the same: survival. I survived.

Yes, I survived. And without a plan I got to a high rung of the ladder anyway. I climbed high enough to see that I had my ladder propped against the wrong wall. What wall? Whose wall? I don't know. And I doubt that it matters.

So I've climbed down the ladder, pulled it away from the wall, and am looking around for a new wall. I know it needs to be my own wall, I don't have one, and I don't have the energy or materials to build a new one.

Is no wall an option? Can I just put the ladder down and walk away? Sure. I don't know how to survive that way, either.

Today, I seem to buckle under the weight of the slightest of expectations. My goals are the same, and yet I don't trust my footing on any path. My capabilities have lost their market value, and in this world, a person's market value is equivalent to survival.

I don't know how to survive anymore, and don't know if I will.

So I write.