The Single Life: Great expectations in a fast-paced world

Going from being married to becoming a single has made a profound difference in my expectations.

There are some hopes and dreams that still linger, and although they have begun to fade, a word, a look or a gesture is enough to unlock them after many years in self-storage.

Some expectations just come with the territory. Usually, they are out of your control. You have learned to live with them. Simple things like making your garage door go up or down at the press of a button.

The 9 p.m. news comes on at 9 p.m. If you go to a Mexican restaurant, you don’t order Chinese. Somehow the post office gets your mail sorted out from thousands of others.

Objective expectations seldom require anything more than a passing thought.

Once you take ownership of any expectation outside of the automatic, you and I begin to find out how to compromise, or maybe rebel and then find that we just were all wrong or spot on.

So let’s look at romance as an illustration.

Depending on your generation, when it became time for you to consider how you felt about romance, life was loaded with expectations.

In my generation, what was forbidden became instantly desirable.

The book, “Tea and Sympathy,” wasn’t carried by the library, but we all read it.

The Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew books all took the long way around to even hint at emotional attachment.

We would watch Saturday movies where songs of devotion were focused mostly on horses.

Women were there, of course, but the horse usually was the object of affection.

If we were caught with True Romance or Pin Up magazines, our parents were not pleased, but we sure were.

All the while, we kept experimenting with expectations.

We were reading, watching and doing.

Expectations never included the consequences of young love, getting dumped for another or fighting the endless war of hormones and pimples.

Some expectations came from our parents.

Sit up straight, no elbows on the table, no lipstick called Fire and Ice and when they said to be home by 9 p.m., there was no negotiation. Above all, respect your elders.

So, off we went into life or into war knowing the basics and not much more.

Fast forward to falling into serious love and dressing your bridesmaids as vestal virgins.

Nine months and 15 minutes later, you were a mother.

Your husband left at 8 and came home at 5. Dinner was at 6.

You crawled into bed with the Mr. and made a couple of more kids.

You also couldn’t help but notice the younger crowd was having a much better time than you were.

On your way to the third parent-teacher conference in one month, you began to question what was becoming of the you that had don everything that was expected, yet there was the beginning of a real uneasiness.

There had to be more out there than just what had become so expected.

The world no longer was an oyster, but a stew of opportunity not just limited to marriage.

The Pill, the pleasures of self fulfillment and most of the crowd didn’t give much of a damn if you put your elbows on the table.

Expectations expanded, and once you stuck your finger into this stew, you were hooked.

Then what happened? How far did you go?

Was it worth following these new and unrehearsed expectations?

I think that question will never be answered.

We should give ourselves the permission to examine expectations as they are today and think about the ones yet to come.

Mary Ann Linforth is a Green Valley freelance writer. Contact her at maryannlinforth@aol.com.