When Great Expectations are Unfulfilled (#072)

Someone I admired once told me I was going to win a lot of awards. She meant it as a gift. And for years afterward, every award season that passed without my name in it, some part of me quietly registered it as a shortfall. Even though winning awards had never been my dream to begin with. It was hers, transposed onto me. This is what happens when other people dream big things for us. On the surface it feels like love. Underneath, it can start to shape a life we never actually chose. In this s...