“If you expect nothing from anybody, you’re never disappointed.”  – Sylvia Plath

“Should I open the note?” I asked.

In the middle of my room, my fifteen year old self twirled the little white note in my hands. My boombox made eyes, while the speakers blared the recent Milli Vanilli’s song, “Blame It On The Rain.” Mom let me invite a few friends over for a slumber party. During the night, we played MASH, prank called boys that we liked, and danced to our favorite tunes in my room. We laughed. You know the laugh. The one that has sprinkles of youth and freedom. It is the feeling of wind blowing through your hair while driving your car and you are singing in your “best” voice.

I carried this whimsy through the next morning. My friends left. Mom asked me to clean up my room. As I straightened my bed sheet, a little note fell to the floor.

My first thought, “Oh cool! It’s a note for me.”

The outside fold of the white paper was blank. At least I assumed the note was mine.

Opening it, I read the first line. “Dear __________.”

Too late.  Famous last two words before those clarity driven moments. The note was not for me.

I read further. “I really dislike Rudri. She is coming in-between our friendship. I don’t want you to be friends with her.”

The tears would not come out immediately. In fact, I remember they dripped like a faucet that didn’t work. Each drop carrying the anguish of a fifteen year old girl, whose earth shifted out below her feet.

I never confronted my “friend.”

The lesson endures. That white note resurfaces.

Broken expectations.