180

Yesterday as I was leaving for Book Club Jerry said that he would have a surprise for me when I returned.  This “surprise “ illustrates one of the fundamental differences between us.  You see he was so excited to surprise me by flipping our room around and making it look like a mirror image of it’s old self.  Which is awesome, and I appreciate him wanting to change things up, but this is not my definition of surprise.
A surprise to me is flowers or fresh baked cookies, a donut, dinner made, new jewelry or even greeting me at the door in a loin cloth.  See the difference.  This can make for major disappointments, and until recently has.
Jerry would mention that he has a surprise for me, and I would get excited and wonder what it was and how awesome it was going to be.  Only to be disappointed because it wasn’t what I would really call a surprise.  This causes hurt feelings on both sides.  I am hurt because he doesn’t know what is important to me(or so I thought) and he is hurt because I am not appreciating the effort he made.
The honest truth is that we were both right and both of our feelings were accurate.  So, how do you work through that and make it better?  You appreciate where you are in that moment.  I appreciated him changing the room around because we had been talking about it for a while and he did it to show he is listening.  Jerry has also be trying to surprise me in the ways I like to be surprised. 
Expectations are okay to have, but when they are always larger than reality it causes problems.  What if you have expectations that are never met?  Then it is time for you to start speaking up.  Unless superpowers become real, a person isn’t going to know unless you tell them.  Keep in mind they need to be achievable because if your expectations are unrealistic you probably won’t ever have them met.
Have you had any 180s in your life recently?