Deeply Disappointed

On Sunday a friend was supposed to come up. Her birthday is a little past, but she was going to visit. I have her a small (but tasteful) present I'm sure she will like. I also baked her a cake. An hour after she was supposed to be here I got the text that she was sick and couldn't come. I was disappointed, but these things happen.

Tonight I had a massage on my schedule. I showed up right on time and was asked to wait. When the child receptionist (she looks about 12) came out and said, "Miss Graham, didn't anybody call you," I knew I really, really didn't want to hear whatever she had to say. Seems that my masseuse (is that was they are called these days? NO, my massage therapist!) was in the hospital today and someone should've called me to cancel and reschedule, but did not. It was disappointing, but these things happen.

I have been asked to go see a movie on Thursday. Do you think anyone will get sick, be hospitalized, win the lottery and run off to Paris without notifying me? If they do, I'm just going to buy the Trough O' Popcorn, and the Bucket O' Coke and watch the movie by my own damnself. I am tired of being disappointed.

Which reminds me of an awesome, awesome poem:

"A Disappointment" by Louis Jenkins, from North of the Cities. © Will O' The Wisp Books, 2007.

A Disappointment

The best anyone can say about you is that you are a
disappointment. We had higher expectations of you.
We had hoped that you would finish your schooling.
We had hoped that you would have kept your job at the
plant. We had hoped that you would have been a better
son and a better father. We hoped, and fully expected,
that you would finish reading Moby Dick. I wish that,
when I am talking to you, you would at least raise your
head off your desk and look at me. There are people
who, without your gifts, have accomplished so much
in this life. I am truly disappointed. Your parents, your
wife and children, your entire family, in fact, everyone
you know is disappointed, deeply disappointed.

Now, this is me, Amanda, talking again. I love this poem, because haven't we all felt this way sometime in our life, that we are just sadly disappointed in ourselves, and sometimes, that we have been a disappointment to others? I sure have. Yet there is humor too, the line about Moby Dick. I do not truly believe everyone in the world is disappointed in the subject of the poem, but there are times when that is how one feels. And there are people in the world who go through life trying to make others feel that they are "disappointed, deeply disappointed."