What do you expect?

Tetyana Denford - 15 May 16

Having expectations is like buying tickets to a death-metal gig because it’s been listed as The Cool Band You Have To See Or You Won’t Be Cool. You don’t really want to, but you force yourself, and then you do it, and you feel like you set yourself up. The excitement of “yeah, let’s do this..” evolves into the “meh… do I really want to? Okay, I guess I will..” and dissipates into the “oh why the hell did I do that? I could’ve been home watching Magic Mike…” You went, you weren’t thrilled, but you have the t-shirt.

We all do it, we all say “I should do this” and the good thing is that ultimately, we all learn from it on the other side, no matter how we get there. Sometimes it’s a positive experience where you’re proud of what you’ve done (Today all I wanted to do was clean the house and play Journey on full blast), and sometimes it’s vowing never to do it again (I’ve just wasted my time baking my kid a birthday cake and he’s just crammed it in the washing machine. Next time, it’s frozen pizza). And sometimes, it’s the bad-turned-good shock (I really didn’t want to bake those cakes for the fayre but you know what? The kids were thrilled and I’m glad I did). It’s all good, we can add it to our Life’s List Of Stuff and we own that experience.

The other day, I learned, quite painfully, what happens when I let an empty expectation eclipse my instinct. I was writing a story about having had experiences in my life so far, as a mum, as a woman, where I felt like I had to say “yes”. I should do this, because this will prove to people… was the impetus for everything I was doing; from attending events, to accepting party invitations, to buying overpriced gold hot pants because Kate Moss is hawking it in Grazia. It became costly not only to my wallet, but more importantly, to who I was. I didn’t know what I really wanted to be, what I wanted to do, so I copied everyone else. I read How To Raise a Cool Kid manuals, How To Fix Your Face guides, How To Be Everything And Nothing At The Same Time articles. It was exhausting. So, I thought, why not just say ‘no’ to stuff? What’s the harm in that?

In the process of writing this story, I told myself: Be slightly edgy. Be a ‘new’ kind of cool-and-funny. Be hyperbolic. The writing wasn’t *me*, it was someone else. I ignored my instinct, and as a result, I set myself up for a massive, divisive crash, with emotional shrapnel from various people flung everywhere.

So, let’s backtrack to what I originally wanted to say, coming from the *me* that I know to be:

I’ve met women, I know women in my life, who genuinely want to do Lots Of Good Things, and they are totally boss at it. I also know women who say I Don’t Really Want To But I Will Because It’s Right. I am genuinely impressed by both, for their conviction in that choice and that it makes them happy (happy being the key word here, no matter the choice). I, however, put myself in the I Don’t Really Want To, Do I Have To? crowd. Over time, in order to be true to my own life, I started saying “no” without fearing the repercussions (which can be super hard for an American getting to grips with British culture). It was oddly liberating, having no expectations. No, I can’t go to all these events, no I can’t take my kids to lessons all the time, no I can’t hang out for coffees because I need time to brush my teeth and take the pre-chewed Cheerios out of my hair in case I scare the general public. I had to invest time in the stuff that I really wanted to say ‘yes’ to. Whilst I don’t think this is at all impressive or brave, it is good for me, because at the end of the day, I’m trying to find my own ‘yes’. And as a mum, I found it more important than ever to discover that. I don’t want to expect myself to be anything other than honest, interested, opinionated and above all, genuine.

This is not a plea for sympathy. I’m writing this in an attempt to take away any expectations as a woman, as a mother, as a friend and ultimately, as a human being trying to navigate this blue marble. When you take away the weight of expectations, all of a sudden you find the freedom to trust your instincts. To be true to what you want, and who you are…not who you should be. I think saying ‘no’ gives you creative freedom over your own life. Saying ‘no’ to something makes room for someone’s ‘yes’ to march in. Saying ‘no’ makes space for you to own your happiness and celebrate it unapologetically. Saying ‘no’ basically says “hey.. I can’t do the good stuff, the important stuff, all the time. And that’s okay.” That no is the doorway to a whole lot of yes in a world where you’re bombarded with Buzzfeed and Clickbait articles telling you The Top 10 Ways To Be Amazing At Life.

Life is constantly about questions. Asking them, living them, trying to answer them. It’s not easy. I don’t have the answers, and I’ve never claimed to have it all figured out. Far from it, in fact. I’m still asking myself who I am, if I really need Botox and why I’m suddenly turning 40 and I don’t look like Eva Herzigova. But I do think that this small, relatively innocuous word might be the biggest trick to finding out who we really are.

Tetyana Denford

Tetyana is a Ukrainian-American mum of three, married to an Englishman, living in NY. She's written for Elle and Vogue magazines, and her first novel 'Motherland' is available at Amazon. She hosts a YouTube show called The Craft and Business of Books, translates for Frontline PBS news, and writes freelance.

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