The Queen’s Chronicles – Expectations vs Reality

Life has been, well, being lived lately and I had to take a step back from my online presence to just be present. That doesn’t mean, of course, that I wasn’t documenting and thinking of all the fun things I wanted to share with you here! Sometimes for the Queen’s Chronicles the expectations don’t really match up with reality! I thought I’d share a little of that with you today!

Friday before last we had dinner with our besties for the first time since January of 2020. It was so, so good to have this crew all together and things just felt so “right”. The boys were both about to head out for the summer and we knew this was our last opportunity to have them all together.

Early the next morning Dillon and I set out for a road trip to Charlottesville, Virginia where he will be playing baseball this summer. I was primed and ready to have this boy all to myself for a little mom and son bonding time and had been looking forward to having him pinned in the car for 20 hours!

Let’s just say, Dillon did not necessarily share my excitement. I want to go on record to say I am not a helicopter parent. Letting my kids fly and go out on their own has not been hard for me necessarily. While, of course, I worry about them sometimes, I’ve never been the mom who was devastated when they flew the coop. All that to say, at 19 years old I was not really keen on letting Dillon drive 20 hours cross country alone. He didn’t share my concern in the least.

So, while I was planning this amazing bonding time together and looking into things we could do on the extra day together in Virginia, Dillon was eager to get to his host parents house and settle in for the summer. I won’t go into all the details but let’s just say there were some super hurt feelings and probably (definitely) tears and they were not his.

I am the poster child for being independent and thinking I could face the world alone at an early age. My mom raised me to be this way and never hesistated to let me spread my wings and fly. So I was totally able to get where Dillon was coming from and how excited he was about this new adventure. What I coudn’t understand was how he could not want to go exploring with his mother who was not going to see him all summer!! What we had was a mixmatched sense of expectations versus reality!

Maybe it’s just me, but I fall into the expectations versus reality trap and self sabotage often. Almost every single vacation I’ve ever planned has had some major pitfalls because the reality doesn’t match the expectation I’ve created in my mind and I end up with hurt feelings. There are currently two trips booked in my near future and I was determined to stop the cycle! So on Monday when I stepped into my therapy session I knew exactly what to ask for. I needed tools to help me manage my expectations!

So if you struggle with always feeling let down by a vacation, a job, holiday gatherings with family, here are a few tips to help better manage your expectations and hopefully receive a more content result.

The first question to ask yourself is if setting expectations is a conscious activity. For me, this question is an easy YES! I know I am doing it whether it be a simple sunday dinner, Christmas morning or a week long vacation. I set myself up immediately to be disappointed. Why? Because I have issues with the next three questions I fail to ask!

Did you communicate your expectations? What? Communicate the expecatations? You mean the people in my life may not have the exact plan for experiencing the overwhelming joy of the moment the same way I do? How in the world have I continued to miss this important step?! When kids are young this seems like second nature. You definitely prep them for what to expect on outings and how you expect them to behave. Why do we stop having these discussions with adults who now have their own opinions?

Is it realistic? Hmm….is it really? If your expectations are not realistic then they are just fantasies. Yep, that’s apparently where I’ve been wanting to live…fantasy land! It’s important to reality check with the people you will be gathering or traveling with.

And lastly, is the expectation or expectations agreed upon? You mean when I plan something I shouldn’t just assume we all have the same expectations? This is such a big one right down to the little details. Communication, y’all, it all comes down to actually talking to one another!

So I’m sure you’re wondering if there was anything to salvage in my time alone with Dillon. Of course there was! We listened to lots of great music and had some great conversation. He indulged me and headed out for a short hike to see Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello, and actually didn’t rush through. Then we literally watched college baseball and I took a long walk around town while he napped before we settled in to watch lots of Friends episodes. When we said goodbye at the airport the one thing I asked for was that he call me once a week to check in! My expectation was stated and he agreed to it…now time will tell if I was being realistic!

Being a mom has been one of the hardest roles I’ve ever played as it really is a constant balance of expectations vs. reality. It’s easy to see other’s “hightlight reels” and feel like you are the only one with kids who aren’t dying to spend their time with you. It all goes back to what I have preached over and over to myself….these kids were hand picked by God for me. Raising them to be independent and unafraid to head out into the world on their own is what they needed from me. I am hoping by using some of these new tools in the future I can look forward to more quality time together even if the quantity decreases.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this one just cracked me up. My face versus Dillon’s was definitely appropriate for how our expectations and reality were matching up!