Disappointment

In the immortal words of The Rolling Stones, “you can’t always get what you want.”

There are some days I feel the statement should be amended to “you seldom get what you want” (and apparently, so did they. Looking at you, “Satisfaction”…), but then that’s not really the point of the song.

In every day use, we just stop there.

“I had hoped to do X, but it didn’t work out.”

“Well, you can’t always get what you want.”

“Gee, thanks for that insight.”

We forget about the second part of it. “If you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.” And frankly what we need isn’t always what we want. I want to smother my face in melted chocolate and eat pizza all day, every day. But my body needs “vitamins” and “nutrients,” so I eat sensibly. Most of the time.

Of course the reason we don’t complete the sentiment is because disappointment sucks. It’s a shallow victory to hear “well, this didn’t go the way you wanted, but it’ll work out in the end.”

Yeah, the end was supposed to be successfully obtaining X. Now it’s…what? Unknown. Unknowable. Until you’re some days, weeks, or months beyond, and you look back to see the worn path behind you, and that light clicks on. Ohhhhh.

Sure that part is satisfying. I like to retrace my steps, counting them and watching the twisting way that they got me to where I am standing now.

But right now now it sucks. It just does. There is no sugar coating it. There is no “well, everything happens for a reason.” No. It just sucks.

Still, you know, in the scheme of things. I get it. My disappointment, on the world’s scale of sheer craptastic things, this is like….in the thousands. High thousands. I know that. I really get it. There are people out there who can’t even rely on the second part of that lyric because they’re not very likely to get what they need either.

I keep telling myself that, when I take a breath, and for whatever reason, the air I’ve breathed in seems to just carry all of the things that I’m even slightly bitter about. I keep telling myself that, when the little, nagging things that don’t usually bother me suddenly snowball, and I’m just running frantically from the avalanche. That’s right, running. I’m not about to face a giant snowball of little nagging things. Frankly, if I wasn’t dealing with them when they were tiny, why would I deal with them when they’ve become so big? No, thank you.

And I guess by now, you’re wondering where I’m going with this.

I’m not really sure. Haven’t gotten there, yet.

Sorry to disappoint.