BY Samantha Marie Saglibene

<aside> 🔖 on the everlasting weight that we all feel in our lives

</aside>

The seemingly ghostlike appearance of expectations, how they linger, how they whisper their voices onto the direct experiences of the present moment, and how to even just be aware of their presence can falter them ever so slightly.

I began exploring the presence of expectations that I didn’t realise I had been dressing myself with, about a year or two ago. I remember the feeling of freedom at just the recognition that I had expectations for myself, of what my life would be like, or even the experience of a certain coffee shop that I had not been to before, that my expectations were like clouds over my head.

I am a full time creative, female writer, singer songwriter, and artist living in Brooklyn, New York. I turned twenty six this year, and there are so many elements of my life that I feel proud of, and through the eyes of expectation, I feel ashamed of. I feel as if the expectations that I set for myself are among the most worshipped, and idolized.

What would it be like, to look at myself, at my experiences through eyes that are seeing them as they are, in that moment? How will I listen to the sounds of construction outside of my window without the notion that the sounds should not be there? Could I listen to them as they are, as if it were the first time ever hearing metal on pavement?

What would it be like to look in the mirror, or to be inside my body, as if it was to be accepted for all that it was, all that it is, in this moment? For the feeling of my feet on the apartment floor, the sun casting a soft light into my room. There is a list of items that have not been crossed off a list, and there are perceptions of myself that I cannot control, and there is so much that I cannot control.

What would it be like to live in a moment that is not wearing the old, faded, dress, that has been dragged through the mud of our minds, over, and over again, tattered, and torn, and stitched with the fabrics of expectations?

a poem, "expectations”

******expectations i tie them like laces over my shoes

expectations from scattered places in my mouth, i chew

expectations from mother and nation walk inside my room

with such faces see my vases, flowers that haven’t bloomed