Before we ever learn to talk about expectations, we feel them.
They show up quietly—through water.
Imagine this.
You’re a kid again. It’s summer. The kind where time stretches long and lazy and smells like sunscreen and grass. You’re crouched at the edge of a creek—one that cuts behind a neighbor’s backyard or weaves through the woods like a secret. You’ve got on water shoes that never quite stay on, and the second you step in, a cold shock runs through your calves.
The water’s shallow, fast, and brown with sediment. You can’t see the bottom, but you already know what’s waiting: slick rocks, broken branches, maybe the sting of a sharp pebble if you’re not careful. Bugs hover. Moss clings. The current is unapologetic. It moves as though it will take you with it the second you slip and lose your footing and reminds you to carefully calculate each step as the water climbs up your legs closer to your waist the deeper you continue to venture out into it.
And still—you love it.
You shriek when it’s cold. You chase minnows. You belly-laugh with your sisters as you splash and fall and resurface covered in mud. You know it’s dirty. Unpredictable. Alive.
And that’s the expectation. Nobody promises clean.
You go in knowing there will be mess.
And because of that? You don’t feel betrayed by the water. You feel free in it.
Then life shifts.
Your dad installs a pool in the backyard. It’s turquoise and smells faintly of bleach and plastic. He teaches you how to test the water with a tiny strip. Explains chlorine. Alkalinity. Tells you what happens when the pH gets thrown off—how it can burn your eyes, damage the liner, throw everything out of balance.
There’s a cover in the winter. A net for leaves in the fall. Rules about no running, no roughhousing, no food near the edge. And now you’re forced to wait 30 minutes after eating to swim again.
It’s work. It’s maintenance. It’s ritual.
And it’s safe. Predictable. Clear.
You grow to expect that too—not just because it looks clean, but because someone cared enough to keep it that way.
Now picture this:
You walk into a public pool as an adult. It’s indoor. Fluorescent-lit. You’ve got goggles, a cap, a plan to swim laps. Halfway down the lane, you spot something bobbing in the corner—hair, a band-aid, what might be tissue—or might not.
Water you expected to present clearly, like the pool your dad installed when you were a kid, is littered with unidentified floating objects.
Your stomach turns. You’re suddenly six years old again—but not the version of you running through a creek. You’re the pool kid now. You expected clean. Instead, you got this.
Same water. Same body. Same swim. But depending on the water you were raised in—your reaction is completely different.
That’s the beginning of understanding misalignment.
Not just in pools.
In relationships. In workplaces. In family dynamics. In the way we love, trust, and engage with the world.
Some people live lives you wouldn’t fit into—and they are perfectly happy there. That doesn’t make them wrong.
It makes them different.
Because our needs shift. Our capacity shifts. Our discernment deepens. And that discernment? It comes from experience.
You don’t learn to swim in clear water until you’ve navigated the muddy kind.
You don’t learn to spot misalignment until you’ve lived it.
You don’t know what safe feels like until you’ve been unsafe.
Some people have always had wealth, comfort, family. Others? We’ve lost things. Homes. Jobs. People we love. We’ve had to rebuild from scratch. Alone. Without a soft place to land. That doesn’t make us better. It just makes our expectations different.
We’ve learned to listen differently.
There are moments—especially in running—where this becomes visceral.
I remember the first summer I started. Back then, nine miles felt like fifty. It was hot. Unforgiving. We were deep in the woods when we spotted it—a creek, winding its way between the trees. Real water. Real relief.
We stood in it. Let the water cool our bodies. We laughed. Took deep breaths. Kept going.
Sometimes, you don’t know what you need until it shows up.
Sometimes, you have to go back to the water that raised you to remember what it taught you.
And sometimes you need to revisit it because you realize there’s still more to learn from it. That’s what makes experience sacred—each encounter offers you something. Even the ones you thought you’d already outgrown.
Every space has something to teach you. Even the ones that make you question yourself.
But just because something feels like a setback doesn’t mean it is one.
That’s where mindset comes in. The emotional landmine of misinterpretation isn’t in the situation—it’s in the story we attach to it. You can choose to see a moment as failure, or you can choose to see it as a detour that gave you a better map.
It was never about finding the perfect water.
It was about learning how to listen to what your body needs—and honoring it when it tells you:
“I don’t belong here anymore.”
But that moment rarely feels clean.
It feels complicated.
I’ve lived in places where other people moved on before I did. Old apartments. Friendships that faded. Boyfriends who packed up and left. I stayed. Not because I didn’t feel the misalignment—but because I didn’t want to feel it. Their leaving felt personal. Like I was being left behind. Like they had access to something I didn’t.
But the truth?
Sometimes they just recognized the misalignment sooner. And sometimes? Staying wasn’t strength. It was fear.
Misalignment doesn’t mean failure. It doesn’t mean rejection.
It means something shifted. And if you’re brave enough to pay attention, that shift can become your compass.
Some people don’t want pools.
Some people are afraid of currents.
Some need salt water.
Others need quiet lakes.
And some of us?
We’ve learned to float through all of it.
Because the lesson isn’t in the water.
It’s in how we listen to ourselves once we’ve stepped in.
© 2025 Kimberly Beth Thomas. All rights reserved.
Has the water around you started to feel murky?
Have you noticed things you used to ignore—things that don’t sit right anymore?
I’d love to hear from you.
Have you experienced this shift in your own life—in friendships, family, dating, or work?
Drop your thoughts in the comments.
Let’s talk about the water we’re swimming in—and the clarity we deserve.
Like this post?
Catch up or read ahead:
👈 Part 1: Emotional Landmines – The Myth of Perfect Love
👉 Part 3: Precision of Misunderstanding – The Language Ledger
👉 Part 4: Through the Lens of Limitation – Redefining the Precision of Misunderstanding