It’s a hard thing for me to think too much about what I do and don’t have in my life. It’s hard to acknowledge that I am at an age where I start seeing my closest friends taking out loans for houses and nice cars, getting married and having children. Most are in fact doing a few of these things at the same time, or completely without the assistance of their family or a partner.
I live in an affluent country, in an affluent city where toast costs and average of $8 and pints of beer cost an average of $13. Yet adults in their early twenties are building 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom houses without large deposits of +25%. With the mining boom of the north of the state bringing in extraordinary amounts of young male bachelors there is a surplus of guys to pick from, if you want.
Yet I find the pickings are hard. I cannot help but think (often and regularly) that regardless of the amount of people I meet, i am going to be in struggle town for a while if ant to go down the road of ‘looking for a partner‘.
It may be that I’m hyper-picky. It may be that I’m just judgy and not at ‘that stage of my life‘. I make most of my decisions based on my gut feeling and my heart instinct. It’s how I found my Hip and Cinta, and they are still two of the most defining influences of my life to date. I had a similar instinct a few years back about someone else and that actually did eventuate how I had expected it to, although I didn’t want to mention it to them at the time I knew it wouldn’t end well.
For the most part I have traveled my road alone. It has been lonely and I have felt lost and wished for a hand to hold but I can honestly admit that when I have had opportunities to accept companionship I have pushed it away. Sometimes I have not been ready to accept help, sometimes I have had something to prove and sometimes I can see the other will not be ale to shoulder my burden with me.
Of course you know the alternative and that is when I don’t have the choice. They freak out and leave. Sometimes I get hit with outright honesty, others it is subtle and they drift away. I have seen a few where people don’t make the an attempt to talk it through, just have their thoughts privately and decide with only half the facts.
It hurts. It sucks. It’s totally fair of them. I wish I could leave to sometimes. Just come back in a week after the rain has gone.
I am stronger now because I kept pushing people away back then. I am alone now because I pushed people away. I know how to be alone with myself. I know how to make friends on the internet if I want someone to go geocaching with or just hang out for the afternoon and have ice cream by the beach. I know how to sit at a party for 3 hours when I know no-one and still make it look like I’m having fun. Screw it, I do have fun!
A lot of my friends say they are happy alone or dislike meeting new people. Since I graduated high school 10 years ago I have had 4 lives and I am on my fifth. Each time a new illness takes on a new system of my body my awareness of life and the world around me changes. I am very confident that my choice to pursue the education career path is a long term career move, unlike others. Mainly because now I recognise how to trust my heart and gut instinct on that. I appreciate, value and am investing my time I have with the friends I have, who proved to be more precious than gold over Christmas. I did meet someone who gave my instincts such a burst my internal alarm bells were ballistic and I felt like I was having a stroke.
But that was a while ago now and I’m in a place where moving on is possible, again thanks to my true friends. I believe there will be another time for that. Now, however I think the openness of heart I felt earlier in the year is going on to hibernation. It is one thing to let myself be open to vulnerabilities and show another my true feelings and emotions, it is another to tell them a future with me won’t be easy. It is another to sit there brave faced as it slips out of my grasp.
I will enjoy this year on the sidelines. I will spectate the hell out of my friends fabulousness. I will continue to go to matinee movie dates with my folks. My time will come.
Autumn leaves on the uni path
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Hi Jessica, I fell in love when I was about your age and am still married to the same woman thirty years later, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to last much longer. I, however, will not give up because I still love my woman, though there has been much pain in the relationship and it seems that she’s through. I will either have to convince her to stay in the marriage, though, or to wait for her to file for divorce because I’ve now decided that it won’t be me who files for one.
Marriage is not easy and can be quite complicated by issues that exist or that crop up or develop, and it definitely takes a commitment to deal with these things. You, however, are faced with the issue of finding your mate first, and I believe that this will happen, perhaps when you are least expecting it to. I certainly wasn’t consciously seeking a marriage partner when my now wife and I met. It seemed accidental to me, in fact, that we started relating and then dating.
You have a lot to offer someone, I believe, Jessica, in fact I know that for sure from reading your writings . . . hang in there, I believe it’ll happen if you just keep paying attention . . . Sam