I carry expectation. The weight settled in when I was only in elementary school. As my classmates and I breezed through the first five grades with no burden or worry, sixth grade hammered the expectations of the world on our shoulders before shooing us into middle school. So I carried my newfound expectations dutifully.
For the most part I carried myself with pride from entering a new stage in life. All the students on campus were expected of something. We were children, but we were students first and foremost. School became a battlefield, a fight between students and time with the ever observant eyes of adults looming over us. Grades grew more defined and defined me, each class with a standard beyond just average. Just getting good grades wasn’t enough, I had to earn it with ease. I had to show my invincibility and superiority. It was only the first year of middle school, but everyone was already restless about high school, including me. Plan ahead and be ahead, impress the eyes around me. I calculated each of my efforts to meet the expectations of each class and its teacher. Those that succeeded were praised, and I grew dependent on those acknowledgements. So I greedily took hold of more expectations to carry.
By and large I carried
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It was too much, I was well aware, but the weight was a part of me. What would I be without the things I carried? Who would I be to those I carried for? The binding expectations became my identity, an inherent part of me that I could not separate from. I walked a tightrope submerged in water, the only thing below my feet was a bottomless ocean trench whose shadowy depths threatened to devour my worth in the world. Each expectation from family, peers, teachers, acquaintances, passing strangers, people who I’ve yet to meet— they all weighed on my tightrope path, sinking it further down the trench; and I sank with the expectations I