Dealing with Disapointment

Super Bowl Sunday in America. I'm still a little disappointed to have another  championship game so close to my Vikings, but gone again. It is a tiny smidge, like a, "it would have been so cool to have our team in the game in our town" kind of disappointment, not a "I lost out on the promotion" kind of disappointment. How disappointments though of any kind are handled say a lot more about people than how a person celebrates. There are exceptions to this as some people handle both sides of the coin in less than  admirable ways. Whether they deserve the reputation or not, there is concern that regardless of how the Super Bowl turns out, Philadelphia Eagles fans will create lots of drunken havoc post game. I could care less who wins, though in a work pool, I have New England wining by 17 points.

My son was more on the left or right of center when handling both disappointments and celebrations when he was younger. More than on one occasion did we have to support whole melt downs, and even now, he can spew a tirade. The difference is now the things that he gets frustrated with are the ore important things of life, like politics, and  career opportunities.  DD1 was, and this might not be the best analogy but what comes to mind, a bit of an Eeyore, not getting her hopes up too much, expecting that disappointment happens so you might as well brace for it. DD2 is definitely in the middle. When good things happen, she is elated and bubbly, but then moves on. Same with disappointment. She can shed a tear or show frustration, but really rather quickly, is her old self again. I know my son gets it from me. My older daughter also gets it from me, as in trying to temper my disappointment emotions, I've probably over compensated by creating worst case scenarios, almost as a predictive state. DH is a bit all over the board-sometimes he is over the top on trivial things that go wrong, but in a crisis, he  has a pretty mellow and cool head. He tends to be giddy over good things.

An interesting, but odd story from yesterdays Show Choir competition. DD2 and team were wonderful in both prelims and finals. However, they have this little prop situation that is hit or miss, and it was a miss in the finals, right at the end. I doubt it was what kept them from placing first, because the Grand Champions were spectacular, but frustrating none the less, particularly since everything else went to near perfect. Regardless, they ended up with 2nd, plus best vocals, and the Spirit award. Not too shabby. The odd thing came with our all girls group, who were announced from the day as having placed first in the single gender prep division, while our prep finished first in the mixed gender. These groups don't go on to a finals-their competition is just once in the day. Well right at the end of finals, before the  placements for varsity were made, they announced the scoring got mixed up in single gender category. Our girls actually finished not first, but third. Not only was it disappointing, but quite awkward to as in this day of social media, pictures with the trophy, Tweets and posts had gone out to the cyber word about both of our prep teams finishing first. Talk about a lesson in handling disappointment for these kids.