I'd never call you Judas

My friend’s personal philosophy is “people will disappoint you.” I never really understood why my gut reaction to her adage was so viscerally negative until today: I want to believe that no one will ever disappoint me.

I must have one half a pair of rose-tinted glasses, because I see moments with people as either uplifting or disappointing. I work hard to block disappointment from my mind, but really my interior monologue recounts every slight against me.

My mind hoards memories of disappointment. In the moment of regret, I feel a physical pang. My chest restricts, my eyes narrow, my throat constricts—I am laser focused on that moment of angst. My mind records the act of betrayal like a grainy 80's beta cam, raw and jarring.

I don’t want to see disappointment in my memory, I want to burn the tape of betrayal by holding a magnifying glass to it under the hot summer sun and igniting it. I want all memory of betrayal scorched from my mind until only satisfaction is left. Instead, my self-obsessive brain replays the instant of anguish on a loop, flipping from scene to scene after a few repetitions.

My friend’s statement, “people will disappoint you,” confirms what I don’t want to see. I nod and agree with her, but really I’m chafing at her view. I want the fairytale that everyone will support and cherish and fulfill me all of the time, without fail, even though no one is capable of performing to that standard of perfection.

People disappoint me, and I disappoint others (way too frequently), but the balance of my life points firmly to positive. If I believe like my friend that people will disappoint me, will I at last lose the shaky video library of betrayals? Or, if I learn to see everything as rosy, will I forgive the disappointment I feel?

I don’t think either question is the right beginning for healing my brain, but I shy equally from the ambiguously gray philosophy, “things happen.” Nothing would disappoint or redeem, neither would be good or bad, it would all just be “things.”

I want to continue making judgments, “this is good, this is bad,” but I don’t want to cling to the bad. People may disappoint me, but I’d rather remember them validating me.