Great Expectations Lead to Little Disappointments

Friday, November 5, 2004

Page 15

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Great Expectations Lead to Little Disappointments

By J’AMY PACHECO

Is there anything more likely to bring on disappointment than a big buildup to something?

As I mentioned here last week, my family hosted a Halloween party last weekend. It was a first for my little girl, as well as her parents, and we spent days preparing.

After choosing a “Series of Unfortunate Events” theme, we searched the Internet and magazines for ideas. We planned a menu based upon meals the books’ main characters ate throughout the series, and made cardboard tombstones bearing epitaphs for notable characters that appear — and tragically disappear — throughout the stories.

We managed to assemble the perfect Violet Bauldelaire costume for my daughter, who greatly admires the oldest orphan sibling in the series and wanted to look like her.

We spent every daylight hour of Saturday preparing the house — scrubbing toilets, polishing wood floors, dusting bookcases and hanging fake cobwebs inside and out.

It was all worth it, as it was the loudest and craziest children’s party I’ve ever attended. Even the grown-ups seemed to have a good time. When it was all over and my little girl’s Violet Bauldelaire costume was replaced by Tinker Bell pajamas, I asked my sleepy little offspring how she’d liked her party.

“It wasn’t what I expected,” she said. “I thought it would be different.”

I asked what she meant, and she replied, “Better somehow.”

I’m not sure how it could have been any more fun – the children actually used our black yarn cobwebs as vines and swung from my upstairs balcony. (And almost witnessed a very real heart attack when I found them doing that.) They gobbled up food like it was…well, food, and ate enough candy to make me sick. They had cake, played games, danced the “Monster Mash” and received spiffy treat bags. I don’t know how it could have been better.

It may have been sheer fatigue. After the party, I allowed my daughter to stay up until midnight so she could sign on to an online game. For weeks, the game had been promoting its planned Halloween events, hinting at “mysterious” happenings and cartoon invasions, and she was anxious to see what would take place.

She stayed up until 2 a.m. playing, and waiting for the hoopla to happen. But the “hoopla” was nothing like what she expected, and when I finally made her turn off her game to go to bed, she expressed feelings of having been misled.

Her disappointment might have sprung from her expectations. I suspect the greatest disappointments come from expectations that may be unrealistic.

Several years ago, my daughter pined for a fake pet that its creators implied acted real. With my cat allergy making a real feline out of the question, I let her talk me into this faux pet that was supposed to purr and do every other cat thing except use a litter box.

The cat was fun for about five minutes. But then, the repetitive nature of its limited capabilities became apparent, and disappointment set in. She’d hoped to find a substitute for a real cat, but found instead a robotic kitten that was about as interesting as her goldfish.

The same thing often happens to adults when we hear about a great movie or book. We hear and read raves — sometimes to the point that the movie/book can never live up to what we expect and we come away wondering what all the hoopla was about.

What’s the point of all this? As I also mentioned here last week, Christmas is only a few weeks away.

I go into every holiday season the same way I went into this party — hurried, harried, rushed, mostly unprepared, and thinking that the holidays really are, like an old song says, “the most wonderful time of the year.”

Inevitably, when the rush is over and the living room floor is littered with paper scraps and squashed ribbons, I’m left wondering where the time went and feeling like “something” didn’t happen. I never know what that is, and it’s never overwhelming, but it’s almost always there.

I know I’m not alone in experiencing this post-holiday letdown. So maybe this is a good time to think about that — to start preparing not only for the onslaught of activity, but for the letdown that sometimes follows.

I’m not suggesting a universal lowering of expectations. But if we can take a few moments now to figure out what it is we want out of the coming season, perhaps we’ll be in a better position to slow down and recognize it when it comes.

It’s an approach that seems better, somehow.