Death of a Fantasy

"A woman marries a man hoping she can change him, but she can't. A man marries a woman hoping that she doesn't change, but she does." - Unknown

You have always believed that expectations were preconceived resentments. Yet, I had welcomed them to be my friends. Then the day finally came when I faced the truth of what would never be, of the fact that the girl of your youth was gone forever and wouldn’t be coming back. I had resisted the truth as long as I could. I had been in denial in a vain effort to keep that girl alive, to keep hope alive. It was much sweeter to believe the lie, but in truth that girl came and went like summer rain. All the while I was running down the dark back alleys of my fantasies dragging hope along beside me until one day I turned a corner into the light only to find myself staring truth in the face. When reality hits you, it hits hard. Especially, when there was no other way out, but to fall from great heights of expectations into the brutal truth. Then reality catches you and the truth wraps around you, the truth that has always been right in front of you. But I didn’t want to see it. I couldn’t see it because I had raised the bar of my expectations so high. A goal high enough you could never reach it. What I didn’t I realize was that no one could, so you leaned until you finally fell from the pedestal I had set you high upon. You crashed onto the floor shattered and broken, totally my fault. But I was there to put you back together, only now you were not perfect, though you never really were, only in the eyes of my imagination. Flaws once overlooked were now glaring.  Broken, but with repairs, now you are damaged and your clean lines are gone. I don’t love you like I used to. However, you being who you are, the woman without strings attached, you rejoice at no longer being held to the higher standard, finally allowed to be yourself. In the process my world has become every bit as shattered as you were upon hitting the floor. My hopes and dreams and fantasies dashed upon the rocks of reality by waves of truth. If the highest of all expectations could now not be met, what would life be like? “Normal”? I never wanted that. Are we to be just like everybody else, with no dream to chase after, the fantasy now put behind us? Which is what you have wanted from the start. Now we are not special and Camelot cannot be found. There is no dream to be envied and I am denied being the hero. I am denied being loved like no other; you cannot be praised and worshipped, never to know the happiness that only exists in love songs and misremembered relationships of our parents. What is life without hope? I have no hope. What is life without unyielding romantic love? I have no love for reality now. My love was all spent on the fantasy. All of my life savings gone right up until the last bad check I wrote on you. I’m broke, I’m empty. My heart is broke, my heart is empty. The fantasy is dead. I mourn while you say with great measure of relief, “At last, Alleluia!”