Hope and the land of aloha

 

Vacations are stressful for people with chronic illness. The pressure we put on ourselves is massive. Our constant struggle at home may be Sisyphean, but for some reason we get these crazy ideas that maybe new places, beds, weather, stress levels, food and everything else that goes along with vacation will somehow get that boulder to the top, at least for a little while. In my personal experience this generally creates a situation in which nothing can go right and no one can win. 

A recent vacation with my family showed me these facts in bold clarity. I had gotten my hopes up that I would miraculously feel fantastic the moment we touched down in my favorite place, so when I didn't my heart and mind were bruised and confused. Lucky for me we were on this amazing vacation for 16 days (!) with kind and helpful family and friends so I really did get to enjoy the majority of our time. But, initially my hopes seemed dashed as I felt my [lately awful] normal. 

I'm not here to moan about my first 3-4 days on vacation being miserable for me and how poor me couldn't participate in family fun times. In my view how many people go on vacation and catch a cold or something random and end up in bed the first few days, right? 

What I'm here to explore is why on Earth we continue to build up these expectations of our body's reaction to various situations? Logically, I know that for me when I get my hopes up or my projections out of whack and they don't play out the way I wanted I get frustrated, sad, depressed or devastated, depending on the situation. These emotions do not manifest themselves in happy healthy ways in my (anyone's?) world. I tend to lash out when I'm frustrated or reality doesn't conform to my expectations. I also tend to withdraw when I'm sad or depressed. As you can imagine the worst time to do these things is on vacation, however it happens anywhere I am. Anywhere I set unrealistic expectations of my body and health. Which even after 7 years is still a ridiculous number of times.

I know people talk about hope when it comes to illness, but sometimes I truly wonder how much 

hope is a good thing. You need 

hope in the big picture because without it the 

will to live is severely

damaged, but hope when it spills over into individual circumstances and situations seems to walk a very fine line between expectation and disappointment.
Is this all still intricately intertwined with acceptance? Or can you have acceptance and still experience unrealistic expectations? What do you think?