All around me are familiar faces...Worn out faces...
Going nowhere, Going nowhere...
Four different men have asked me out in the last two days. I have two voicemails, an email and the pizza guy, not one is even remotely interesting. One actually said, "One bad date on a sweltering day when I said some thoughtless things and did some thoughtless things is not a good reason not to go out again." Oh yeah? On what planet is that not a good reason? When it's only the second date and I can't wait to get away from you, that's reason enough never to see you again.
I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
On my way home this evening, after we said goodbye, a woman stopped me on 34th Street. "Excuse me. Hello?" I stopped and looked at her quizzically. She apologized for stopping me. Then she said, "I'm a psychic and I can see something in your aura." I said 'What'? She said, "I see something. . ." Then she rushed out the words 'You have a lot of positive changes coming in your life', like it was the obligatory psychic handshake before she could get to the real stuff. "But right now you have something on your mind. You are confused about love." I laughed out loud.
I find it hard to tell you, 'Cos I find it hard to take
She asked me if I'd ever had a reading before. I told her I had not and that I didn't have any money. She said, "Oh, no. I'm just talking to you. Normally, you'd be coming to Astoria to see me. I wish I had one of my cards on me but I don't." I said, "Oh." Then she started walking away and said, "Maybe I'll see you again." And that was it. She was dressed in nice clothes with a Burberry scarf and just looked like a New York woman going out at night.
No one knew me...
Look right through me, look right through me
Valentine's Day is stupid. I don't care about it, I don't expect anything from anyone and I don't want anything from anyone. But even so, it's cruel. It took me an hour to get home on the train tonight and I was surrounded by lovers. And lots of people holding presents, pink bags, flowers, women dressed up with glowing faces. College kids standing at the pole kissing. The teen punks next to me discussing what the boy was going to get for the girl. She wants new black nail polish. It was almost a relief to have the beggar who fakes that he's deaf come into the car. He was followed by Mr.I have HIV I'm hungry anything you can spare but I've got on my RocaWear gear.
Children waiting for the day they feel good...
I wanted to rent a bunch of slasher pics for the weekend. BUT THERE IS NO VIDEO STORE IN MY HOOD--except the damn Kung fu porn place. On my way home, I stopped in the midtown Duane Reade to check out their new dvd rental vending machines, but you have to return the disks in 6 hours. I wasn't trekking back from Brooklyn just for some bad horror movies. If I had remembered, I could have gone by Central Park last night to see The Gates. That would have been cool to see at night, and a nice dessert to top off my deli dinner quiche. But I didn't think to do that.
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
My old cat is losing weight so I'm worried now that she might be sick. She's always been obese but the last month she's slimmed way down and become weirdly affectionate. She can't be sick. I can't deal with losing her right now. 9 years she's been my comfort. Take away everything else--but please, please leave her with me.
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had.
Quotes from Tears for Fears "Mad World"
2.11.2005
OB/Gee bad news
The obscenity is the money. When the nurse practitioner told me what she found I started to cry because all I could think was that this sounded expensive and my uninsured self does not have the money. But it explains the hell that has been my body the last few months. WARNING: Discussion of female bodily functions follows. Not for the feint of stomach or squeamish men. I apologize now for the ickiness of this post. But this is life. And this is all that's on my mind today.
Since December, my already unusually short menstrual cycle of 17 days suddenly dropped to 10 days. That is 10 days between my periods, with PMS starting about 3-4 days prior to onset. Which means I have about 5 days of feeling like a normal human until the whole thing starts again.
Why did I wait two months to see someone about this? At first I thought it was some kind of fluctuation that would go away. But it didn't. And I can't afford to go to a doctor so I'm left with the nurse practitioner at the school clinic. I have nothing against nurse practitioners. But this woman told me to stop drinking caffeine last year when I went to see her about an ear infection.
Lacking other options I made an appointment and had to wait a week. I went in yesterday. Told her the problem. She said she'd have to give me a pap before she'd give me a scrip for birth control pills. FUN. So I stripped and got stirruped up. An intern was there with us for training which made everything take longer so the nurse could explain what she was doing with me.
The woman was not gentle AT ALL. I squirmed in pain. I told her she was hurting me and she said, "I know." Poke, poke, poke, pinch, pinch...went the cold steel sharp objects that nature never intended to go inside women. "I can't see the cervix. There it is. Come take a look at this. See how it's over there?" "Oh yeah."
"I'm really uncomfortable." I interrupted them as a cold sweat worked its way out of my forehead. She said "Yes." Secretly I wondered if they could see my hymen, though I don't even know if I still have one. It's stupid but I'm always afraid when I go for an exam that the doctor will shout in surprise: What's this? Are you a virgin? HOW old are you? Well now I've seen everything."
Finally she pulled the speculum out and started the bimanual exam. That didn't hurt but she found something. She says I have at least one fibroid. She told me this and all I could think was: What the hell is that? Is that cancer? Whatever it is this is going to cost me a lot of money. "I'm going to give you a rectal exam now." "A what?" Yuck. She started that exam while I considered this fibroid thing. I'd heard of these before. Usually benign. But would they have to operate or laser it or something?
Not only was I half nude and in the most ignoble position, tears started dripping out of my eyes, which triple embarrassed me. She said I might have another fibroid but she wasn't sure, I need to get a sonogram. "I can't pay for that." She went on about why I needed it. Then the intern took my blood, two vials full to test my hormone levels. Which I can expect a bill for next week. The nurse called someone to get a price on the sonogram.
The nurse wouldn't even give me a prescription for the pill because she said I needed to have the sonogram first just to see what's going on. That made no sense to me. I was in shock so I let it go. Damn. This broke student life is getting really, really old. My aging body can't seem to keep up with this anymore. And I am aging. Here is irrefutable proof. I left the building to find a pizza place where I could go cry. Then I went home.
Today my PMS symptoms are in full swing. I think they must have started yesterday with all the crying, but today I am completely fatigued. Someone please put my body out of its misery! If I were a horse, it'd be time to put me down. Right now, that's what I'd prefer.
Since December, my already unusually short menstrual cycle of 17 days suddenly dropped to 10 days. That is 10 days between my periods, with PMS starting about 3-4 days prior to onset. Which means I have about 5 days of feeling like a normal human until the whole thing starts again.
Why did I wait two months to see someone about this? At first I thought it was some kind of fluctuation that would go away. But it didn't. And I can't afford to go to a doctor so I'm left with the nurse practitioner at the school clinic. I have nothing against nurse practitioners. But this woman told me to stop drinking caffeine last year when I went to see her about an ear infection.
Lacking other options I made an appointment and had to wait a week. I went in yesterday. Told her the problem. She said she'd have to give me a pap before she'd give me a scrip for birth control pills. FUN. So I stripped and got stirruped up. An intern was there with us for training which made everything take longer so the nurse could explain what she was doing with me.
The woman was not gentle AT ALL. I squirmed in pain. I told her she was hurting me and she said, "I know." Poke, poke, poke, pinch, pinch...went the cold steel sharp objects that nature never intended to go inside women. "I can't see the cervix. There it is. Come take a look at this. See how it's over there?" "Oh yeah."
"I'm really uncomfortable." I interrupted them as a cold sweat worked its way out of my forehead. She said "Yes." Secretly I wondered if they could see my hymen, though I don't even know if I still have one. It's stupid but I'm always afraid when I go for an exam that the doctor will shout in surprise: What's this? Are you a virgin? HOW old are you? Well now I've seen everything."
Finally she pulled the speculum out and started the bimanual exam. That didn't hurt but she found something. She says I have at least one fibroid. She told me this and all I could think was: What the hell is that? Is that cancer? Whatever it is this is going to cost me a lot of money. "I'm going to give you a rectal exam now." "A what?" Yuck. She started that exam while I considered this fibroid thing. I'd heard of these before. Usually benign. But would they have to operate or laser it or something?
Not only was I half nude and in the most ignoble position, tears started dripping out of my eyes, which triple embarrassed me. She said I might have another fibroid but she wasn't sure, I need to get a sonogram. "I can't pay for that." She went on about why I needed it. Then the intern took my blood, two vials full to test my hormone levels. Which I can expect a bill for next week. The nurse called someone to get a price on the sonogram.
The nurse wouldn't even give me a prescription for the pill because she said I needed to have the sonogram first just to see what's going on. That made no sense to me. I was in shock so I let it go. Damn. This broke student life is getting really, really old. My aging body can't seem to keep up with this anymore. And I am aging. Here is irrefutable proof. I left the building to find a pizza place where I could go cry. Then I went home.
Today my PMS symptoms are in full swing. I think they must have started yesterday with all the crying, but today I am completely fatigued. Someone please put my body out of its misery! If I were a horse, it'd be time to put me down. Right now, that's what I'd prefer.
Collection:
Life
2.07.2005
The Sweet Single Life
As a follow up to my last post, I'd like to discuss the finer things of single life. I have it good. I have it easy. Some things suck rotten eggs. Some things don't.
Here's a happy list of non-sucking things in my life that presumably I will miss if I ever get married: (In no particular order)
1. I answer to no one. I do whatever I want whenever I want.
2. I stay up late and wake up late.
3. If I'm too depressed or tired to change my sheets, that's my problem and I don't have to do it.
4. Saturday mornings, (on the rare occasions I wake up) are for eating Lucky Charms or Count Chocula AND chocolate covered donuts while watching cartoons. My favorite is X-Men. Yu-Gi-Oh actually grew on me though I despised it at first. I've learned to appreciate it's wonderful badness.
5. I can travel at a moment's notice without inconveniencing anyone.
6. Body hair is my own private business and what I do or don't do with it is no one else's concern. [Someone told me that women looking for boyfriends don't share my attitude. I scoffed at this person since he had just been kissing me.]
7. No stress regarding other people. I only have my own problems to worry about.
8. No contention in my home life. [Sometimes the cats need a scolding but they rarely shout back.]
9. My money is my money.[or lack thereof, no guilt for making other people live on stale bagels, eggs and beans.]
10. The remote control is ALL mine, pity the man who ever tries to take it from me.
11. I don't have to listen to someone else's bad music.
12. If I skip church, low guilt factor, I'm not preventing other souls the inspiration or enlightenment that church should provide.
13. I can spend at will. If it happens to be the case that I need new shoes more than groceries and an unlimited metrocard, then that's what I get.
14. Complete unpredictability of my life. Anything can happen at anytime. I can't even say where I'll be in 6 months or what I'll be doing. I love that.
15. Time to devote to my friends. If one of them is in crisis, I can drop everything to rush to their aid or support without worrying about other responsibilities.
16. Sometimes when those 3 flights of stairs to the kitchen get too long after a day of running around the city, I can have a can of pringles for dinner instead of bothering with a real meal.
17. There's no one here that can be disappointed in me.
18. I can leave my clean clothes out for a week, putting away one class of item per day (Today it was underthings, tomorrow I may do socks or shirts.)
19. Total professional freedom. If I got a job in London then I could go to London.
20. There's no man here saying things like "Is it that time of the month?" just because he doesn't like what I'm doing or saying.
21. I don't have to do other people's laundry in addition to my own.
22. No one gets mad when I shove clothes into the drawer making them get all wrinkled.
23. Food experiments in tupperwear that got left out in my bedroom are allowed to blossom and grow of their own volition.
24. My family is the only family I have to deal with, no in laws or other such scary things.
25. Me and my students are the only people who get mad when I forget things.
26. No man pee on the bathroom floor or around the seat (except when some people have guests over but that's not often enough to be a problem.)
27. I don't get big callings at church, I can disappear into the walls if I so choose.
28. I can go to sleep with music on.
29. No sharing my closet.
30. Never having to wonder if I could have done better or if I made the worst mistake of my life or if this other person will ultimately betray me and destroy my life.
31. Maybe I snore and maybe I don't. But no one else is snoring in my bed.
32. I'm the only one losing my things.
33. If I hate my life then I can change everything tomorrow.
34. No kids/babies/mortgages/career sacrificing.
35. There's no end to the drama and excitement
36. My depression only hurts me.
37. No one complains if I spend the entire weekend in my pajamas eating pizza and watching tv or playing video games.
That's the end of this list for today. Some of these things also belong on the things that do suck list, but that's for another day.
Here's a happy list of non-sucking things in my life that presumably I will miss if I ever get married: (In no particular order)
1. I answer to no one. I do whatever I want whenever I want.
2. I stay up late and wake up late.
3. If I'm too depressed or tired to change my sheets, that's my problem and I don't have to do it.
4. Saturday mornings, (on the rare occasions I wake up) are for eating Lucky Charms or Count Chocula AND chocolate covered donuts while watching cartoons. My favorite is X-Men. Yu-Gi-Oh actually grew on me though I despised it at first. I've learned to appreciate it's wonderful badness.
5. I can travel at a moment's notice without inconveniencing anyone.
6. Body hair is my own private business and what I do or don't do with it is no one else's concern. [Someone told me that women looking for boyfriends don't share my attitude. I scoffed at this person since he had just been kissing me.]
7. No stress regarding other people. I only have my own problems to worry about.
8. No contention in my home life. [Sometimes the cats need a scolding but they rarely shout back.]
9. My money is my money.[or lack thereof, no guilt for making other people live on stale bagels, eggs and beans.]
10. The remote control is ALL mine, pity the man who ever tries to take it from me.
11. I don't have to listen to someone else's bad music.
12. If I skip church, low guilt factor, I'm not preventing other souls the inspiration or enlightenment that church should provide.
13. I can spend at will. If it happens to be the case that I need new shoes more than groceries and an unlimited metrocard, then that's what I get.
14. Complete unpredictability of my life. Anything can happen at anytime. I can't even say where I'll be in 6 months or what I'll be doing. I love that.
15. Time to devote to my friends. If one of them is in crisis, I can drop everything to rush to their aid or support without worrying about other responsibilities.
16. Sometimes when those 3 flights of stairs to the kitchen get too long after a day of running around the city, I can have a can of pringles for dinner instead of bothering with a real meal.
17. There's no one here that can be disappointed in me.
18. I can leave my clean clothes out for a week, putting away one class of item per day (Today it was underthings, tomorrow I may do socks or shirts.)
19. Total professional freedom. If I got a job in London then I could go to London.
20. There's no man here saying things like "Is it that time of the month?" just because he doesn't like what I'm doing or saying.
21. I don't have to do other people's laundry in addition to my own.
22. No one gets mad when I shove clothes into the drawer making them get all wrinkled.
23. Food experiments in tupperwear that got left out in my bedroom are allowed to blossom and grow of their own volition.
24. My family is the only family I have to deal with, no in laws or other such scary things.
25. Me and my students are the only people who get mad when I forget things.
26. No man pee on the bathroom floor or around the seat (except when some people have guests over but that's not often enough to be a problem.)
27. I don't get big callings at church, I can disappear into the walls if I so choose.
28. I can go to sleep with music on.
29. No sharing my closet.
30. Never having to wonder if I could have done better or if I made the worst mistake of my life or if this other person will ultimately betray me and destroy my life.
31. Maybe I snore and maybe I don't. But no one else is snoring in my bed.
32. I'm the only one losing my things.
33. If I hate my life then I can change everything tomorrow.
34. No kids/babies/mortgages/career sacrificing.
35. There's no end to the drama and excitement
36. My depression only hurts me.
37. No one complains if I spend the entire weekend in my pajamas eating pizza and watching tv or playing video games.
That's the end of this list for today. Some of these things also belong on the things that do suck list, but that's for another day.
Collection:
Single Living
2.03.2005
The Omnipresent hunger
There is no escape from this. I wanted to try to make this not-a-dating blog. But too much happens. Encounters of the romantic kind are always out of the ordinary, always eventful. The smallest thing can mean everything. One person smiles to himself when he thinks you aren't looking, and it makes your fear goes away. The simple touch of a hand can be the most thrilling thing in the world. One little word, a plain old "yes" can change your whole life. So this is why I give in. Once again I bring you tales from the dark side, I mean my love life.
Something surprising happened this afternoon. Not a big deal or anything. Nothing life changing for sure. But, it gave me a smile. Someone took a risk which we should take a moment to admire.
My school email account becomes inaccessible to me regularly throughout the year. Our passwords expire after a few months. If we don't change them in the two weeks before the expiration then we get locked out. This happened over Christmas break. I didn't bother to fix it because I was on vacation. Today I grit my teeth to face the wrath of bitter students and the emails I knew awaited me. In order to gain access to our emails we have to go to campus (contained within an urban highrise) down to the basement where the Help Desk and its minions reside. I went down to the lab and had my password reset. Thinking it best to deal with the emails right away, I sat down to read and respond to the angry messages I expected to have received.
There weren't too many of them. Some people need to schedule a make up exam, and there was some confusion with some incomplete grades. My favorites were the emails from the smart obnoxious kids who made teaching hell for me last year. They wanted to know why they didn't get the A's they expected. I guess they forgot to notice on the syllabus that 25% of their grade is participation. Then I read this:
When I first read it I got annoyed. I was trying to formulate my standard response giving my office hours and telling the dissatisfied student to come see me if he/she needs me to explain his grade. But I couldn't tell what this student's problem was and why he wanted to make an appointment with me. I was about to send a reply asking what the student needed to discuss but then I read it again.
Wait a minute, he doesn't seem to have a problem with his grade. Why does he need to see me? Huh. It sounds like he just wants to see me for me no reason. Why? Could he be asking me out? Ohhhhhhh... yeah there goes the winking emoticon at the end. The little flirt! He is asking me out. This guy always sat in the front row of my night class: nice student who participated, good attendance, did an extra credit presentation and was friendly to me after class. I think I remember him winking at me once. But one time he told us some long story about his girlfriend whose family is in the Mafia and how they drove her uncle's tinted caddy down to West Virginia and got harassed by the local bubba cops....
Girlfriends aren't permanent. He's not jailbait at least, unlike this student. Whom I ran into last November one night on the way to class. I was so embarrassed to see him that I blushed fiercely when he started talking to me. Lucky for me it was night and dark enough that he shouldn't have seen that. (He filled out since the previous year.) He said he knew I didn't still remember his name but I surprised him and got his name right. Though I'm sure I stumbled the words. Good thing he didn't have his glasses on or I probably couldn't have talked at all.
That's the end of this little story. Nothing major. I had a small yet pleasant afternoon shock. This guy stuck his neck out in a cute and polite way. I'm not sure how to respond yet.
Why did my weak resolve break down on something so insignificant? Because it wasn't insignificant to him. I imagine he spent some time working out the words or wondering when he should send the email. Maybe he was nervous. I've done the email asking out myself and it's not as easy as you might think. And how bold is that to ask out your professor? While the grades are still wet no less. Good for him.
As a youngish single female whose stir-crazy hormones punish my body daily, (I'm actually going to the doctor tomorrow about that), a major part of my life belongs to the romantic vein. The single person carries the burden of a desire to be with another person and that desire colors everything around her. Every encounter may present a new opportunity. Every outing holds the possibility for love; whether to parties, the grocery store, the laundromat, church, class, the subway, walking on the sidewalk... each corner we turn offers a tiny sliver of hope--that on the other side is someone for you. And the phone. Everytime it rings, a small part of you thrills at the possibility that someone is calling for you. When the phone remains silent, we secretly sulk.
Even when you tell yourself you don't care and you aren't looking, that's a lie. You can subdue the desire and hope, you can ignore it, you can direct your attention elsewhere but it doesn't go away. No matter how busy, how happy, how fulfilling your single life may be, the nagging 'little' need never goes away. So you never really shut down the search engines. You're forever looking for something that will tell you who or how or when the need will be fulfilled.
I had to learn that the hard way. In my earlier years I decided marriage wasn't important to me because I had other things to do. So dating was a recreational sport I didn't take seriously nor bother much about. I thought that I'd be just fine living solo for the rest of my life thank you very much. And I worked on that and lived with that belief. Until my 25th year, my first time teaching. I had no roommate at the time so I lived alone. For the first time I had a kind of professional validation, gained from teaching. It was a sign that I was on the way to being successful and achieving my goals. I expected to feel some contentment or satisfaction. But I did not. I came home night after night to the empty apartment. I had no one to call. No one to talk to. No one asked about my day. And I realized how meaningless it was. My success seemed no success at all. At the end of the day it didn't matter what I accomplished because there was no one else who cared. I had a crisis over this. I had to re-adjust my life goals and priorities. I had to accept that I had been wrong. Accept that I really didn't want to be alone and that this wasn't ok. For someone as stubborn as myself, this was hard.
Now, four years later I still struggle with this. Because you can't dwell on it. You can't afford to focus all your energy or time on the hunt for love because that's not healthy. Nor do I like dwelling on it which is why my boredom surfaced. I'm working really hard at the moment to return to functional human being mode, which means re-adopting my life coping skills, such as trying not to care too much about the love life.
Alas, here is the cruelest joke of all. The most basic and essential need of the human soul, the want of love from another soul, must be subdued in order to be fulfilled. The desperate person is unhealthy and unattractive. The obsessive person is scary. The harder you look, the less you find. Singletons must get on with life anyway. We work to fulfill our lesser needs. But the truth is we live each day with the omnipresent hunger gnawing at our souls. Yet we go on. And on. And on . . .
Something surprising happened this afternoon. Not a big deal or anything. Nothing life changing for sure. But, it gave me a smile. Someone took a risk which we should take a moment to admire.
My school email account becomes inaccessible to me regularly throughout the year. Our passwords expire after a few months. If we don't change them in the two weeks before the expiration then we get locked out. This happened over Christmas break. I didn't bother to fix it because I was on vacation. Today I grit my teeth to face the wrath of bitter students and the emails I knew awaited me. In order to gain access to our emails we have to go to campus (contained within an urban highrise) down to the basement where the Help Desk and its minions reside. I went down to the lab and had my password reset. Thinking it best to deal with the emails right away, I sat down to read and respond to the angry messages I expected to have received.
There weren't too many of them. Some people need to schedule a make up exam, and there was some confusion with some incomplete grades. My favorites were the emails from the smart obnoxious kids who made teaching hell for me last year. They wanted to know why they didn't get the A's they expected. I guess they forgot to notice on the syllabus that 25% of their grade is participation. Then I read this:
Just wanted to extend you my wishes for a happy New Year, and it was a pleasure to be your tutee.
[Part of email withheld from publishing.]
<>Anyhow, I'd like to meet with you again sometime, if the opportunity presented itself. My number is xxx-xxx-xxxx if you'd like to get together sometime.... ;-)
When I first read it I got annoyed. I was trying to formulate my standard response giving my office hours and telling the dissatisfied student to come see me if he/she needs me to explain his grade. But I couldn't tell what this student's problem was and why he wanted to make an appointment with me. I was about to send a reply asking what the student needed to discuss but then I read it again.
Wait a minute, he doesn't seem to have a problem with his grade. Why does he need to see me? Huh. It sounds like he just wants to see me for me no reason. Why? Could he be asking me out? Ohhhhhhh... yeah there goes the winking emoticon at the end. The little flirt! He is asking me out. This guy always sat in the front row of my night class: nice student who participated, good attendance, did an extra credit presentation and was friendly to me after class. I think I remember him winking at me once. But one time he told us some long story about his girlfriend whose family is in the Mafia and how they drove her uncle's tinted caddy down to West Virginia and got harassed by the local bubba cops....
Girlfriends aren't permanent. He's not jailbait at least, unlike this student. Whom I ran into last November one night on the way to class. I was so embarrassed to see him that I blushed fiercely when he started talking to me. Lucky for me it was night and dark enough that he shouldn't have seen that. (He filled out since the previous year.) He said he knew I didn't still remember his name but I surprised him and got his name right. Though I'm sure I stumbled the words. Good thing he didn't have his glasses on or I probably couldn't have talked at all.
That's the end of this little story. Nothing major. I had a small yet pleasant afternoon shock. This guy stuck his neck out in a cute and polite way. I'm not sure how to respond yet.
Why did my weak resolve break down on something so insignificant? Because it wasn't insignificant to him. I imagine he spent some time working out the words or wondering when he should send the email. Maybe he was nervous. I've done the email asking out myself and it's not as easy as you might think. And how bold is that to ask out your professor? While the grades are still wet no less. Good for him.
As a youngish single female whose stir-crazy hormones punish my body daily, (I'm actually going to the doctor tomorrow about that), a major part of my life belongs to the romantic vein. The single person carries the burden of a desire to be with another person and that desire colors everything around her. Every encounter may present a new opportunity. Every outing holds the possibility for love; whether to parties, the grocery store, the laundromat, church, class, the subway, walking on the sidewalk... each corner we turn offers a tiny sliver of hope--that on the other side is someone for you. And the phone. Everytime it rings, a small part of you thrills at the possibility that someone is calling for you. When the phone remains silent, we secretly sulk.
Even when you tell yourself you don't care and you aren't looking, that's a lie. You can subdue the desire and hope, you can ignore it, you can direct your attention elsewhere but it doesn't go away. No matter how busy, how happy, how fulfilling your single life may be, the nagging 'little' need never goes away. So you never really shut down the search engines. You're forever looking for something that will tell you who or how or when the need will be fulfilled.
I had to learn that the hard way. In my earlier years I decided marriage wasn't important to me because I had other things to do. So dating was a recreational sport I didn't take seriously nor bother much about. I thought that I'd be just fine living solo for the rest of my life thank you very much. And I worked on that and lived with that belief. Until my 25th year, my first time teaching. I had no roommate at the time so I lived alone. For the first time I had a kind of professional validation, gained from teaching. It was a sign that I was on the way to being successful and achieving my goals. I expected to feel some contentment or satisfaction. But I did not. I came home night after night to the empty apartment. I had no one to call. No one to talk to. No one asked about my day. And I realized how meaningless it was. My success seemed no success at all. At the end of the day it didn't matter what I accomplished because there was no one else who cared. I had a crisis over this. I had to re-adjust my life goals and priorities. I had to accept that I had been wrong. Accept that I really didn't want to be alone and that this wasn't ok. For someone as stubborn as myself, this was hard.
Now, four years later I still struggle with this. Because you can't dwell on it. You can't afford to focus all your energy or time on the hunt for love because that's not healthy. Nor do I like dwelling on it which is why my boredom surfaced. I'm working really hard at the moment to return to functional human being mode, which means re-adopting my life coping skills, such as trying not to care too much about the love life.
Alas, here is the cruelest joke of all. The most basic and essential need of the human soul, the want of love from another soul, must be subdued in order to be fulfilled. The desperate person is unhealthy and unattractive. The obsessive person is scary. The harder you look, the less you find. Singletons must get on with life anyway. We work to fulfill our lesser needs. But the truth is we live each day with the omnipresent hunger gnawing at our souls. Yet we go on. And on. And on . . .
Collection:
Single Living
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)