Welcome To Your 30's

Hello, And Welcome To Your 30’s….

You suddenly feel too old to be single - thanks Society; and you hate everyone that you meet. Except for that one person that you do want, and they continue to linger, but don’t give you what you need - simply put: he doesn’t want me.

So why do I keep trying? Even when I’m not trying - I’m trying. (Insert *eye-roll-emoji* here)

I wanted to see him recently, because I wanted to share this revelation I recently had during therapy. I’ll get into my relationship with my parents another time, but it’s literally Hell, and it’s honestly really fucked me up. I realized that the heartbreak I was experiencing, wasn’t necessarily his fault. Much of it, was me projecting my parental heartbreak onto my situation with him. Which, in all honesty, I’ve always had complete control over. We met - he liked me - I wasn’t ready - he moved on - I moved on - we came back to each other - he was just a hook up - but then something changed. I changed. I started thinking it was more. And for me it was. But for him it wasn’t. Really I think the thought I had was, “Oh, wow. Why haven’t I considered this person before? Has he been in front of me this whole time and I was just too hurt to see it?” So I started giving it a chance and putting more energy into it. Unfortunately, I was the only one putting energy into it. With every out break of outrage that started to come out of me, nothing changed. I threw every which way of “crazy” at him - if “crazy” is asking for what I want…I guess the difference is accepting the answer that comes back to you. Instead of accepting it, I just keep trying to love him into it. In my defense, he did tell me he loved me. He was in my apartment, we were pouring a drink, it was last September, and he looked at me and said, “Hey, you know I love you, right?” And I knew he meant it…but once you say that…doesn’t that mean that you move to the next step? It’s not like we’re 16 - however, I definitely feel like I’m 16 when I’m with him. Maybe that’s not a good thing.

I don’t even know why I’m giving this another thought. It’s just so hard to find someone that you vibe with once you hit your 30’s. And he and I vibe so hard.

Everyone has baggage. Mine: Emotional and Psychological - but being dealt with. Men from 28 - 48, which is my acceptable age range of potential husbands, they have either already been married, and/or have kids. That’s not easy to walk into. So to find a single guy, no kids, was engaged, but never married, one year older than me, sexy as Hell, best sex I’ve ever had in my life, makes me laugh, likes to party with me, intelligent, successful, and only going to become more successful - I can’t even continue typing all the compliments I could give him because it is making me so angry! WE WOULD BE SUCH A POWER COUPLE!

Is he just telling me these things when he’s with me to get into my pants? Or does he mean them? Is he just trying to let me down gently? Because, I think I need some brutal truth right now. Is he in love with someone else? I get that! That’s where I was when I met him. It was still too fresh…But now…now it feels like it’s now or never. If I start dating someone else - ugh! That’s the thing though, right? There isn’t anyone else. There are plenty of men trying to get my attention. I just can't seem to even want to try. Everyone I meet I compare to him. And no one compares. I really think I’m that for him too. He said, “I could see a life with you, and I want to get there. But for some reason I can’t. And I don’t know why.” I want to understand that. I want to be optimistic about it. But I can hear my girlfriends screaming through the phone right now, “The man that deserves you will move the moon and stars for you! He won’t even text you back…”

Welcome to your 30’s where everything you thought you knew makes absolutely no sense. Up is down. Across is left. Behind is right. and over is under. The guys you want, want to keep it casual and don't text back. The guys that are putting in the effort and making it very clear they are indeed interested, don't spark that magic you want. But welcome to your 30's where you're supposed to be practical. "Magic isn't what makes a relationship last" - isn't that what they say? I'm not ready to give up on the magic yet. I want the magic. I want the butterflies in my stomach. I want the sweaty palms and racing heart.

I thought maybe I was projecting the love I wanted to have from my parents onto my sexual partners, but I really don’t think that’s it. There’s something about him that feels like home - or rather, the way I always wanted my home to feel, but never did. He makes me feel safe. He makes me feel loved. He makes me feel protected. Unfortunately, I only get to feel that way with him for a fleeting moment - a night once a week if I'm lucky...sometimes it's a month between the times I see him. But other than that moment, I don't hear from him. I don't talk to him. (Well, I talk to him. Maybe he reads it. Maybe he doesn't. He has 177 unread text messages. That gives me anxiety just writing that. . .) And then, that feeling is over, and I feel like a heart-broken teenager, pining over a guy that isn't giving me any indication he is pining over me…until the next time he decides to ask me to come over and I say, “I’ll be there in 5”. Like I’m pathetic and needy.

I gross myself out sometimes.

Why is it so hard for me to sit back, and relax? Why do I constantly feel like I need to orchestrate my life? Why do I feel so entitled to whatever it is that I want when I want it? My parents are not wrong when they call me a brat! I am. And I’m spoiled. And while I was given everything I could ever possibly want as a kid, I did feel entitled to it. Because on some level, it did make up for the heartbreak that I experienced every single day. It’s normal for family members to fight. It is not normal to fight every day. It is not norm - I don’t even want to use that word because what the fuck is “normal” anyways? It was not OK for me to be afraid to come home. It was not OK for me to be afraid of my dad at the level at which I’ve always been afraid of him. And it is not OK that my parents don’t acknowledge any of this. I could go deeper into it, but I really don’t want to right now. I just want to be aware that the pain I feel from that is real and it is damaging.

I know I project my heartbreak into my relationships. When I vibe with someone, and it feels so amazing, like it does with him, that rush of endorphins fills up the heartbreak left from my parents. And then like any other drug addict, I don't want that feeling to go away. I don't want to feel the pain again. But then also once you have it, you are scared to death it's going to disappear and once again, you'll be on your knees, trying to breath, because you know this feeling all too well. So I, hold onto it for dear life.

I think I’ve met a few of my soulmates in this lifetime already and I’ve screwed it up. I told him that. I told him, “You wanted me so badly and I wasn’t ready and now I’m ready and you want barely anything to do with me.” He said, “Awe don’t say that. You can’t feel that way.” I said, “But I do! I think we’d be together right now if I hadn’t screwed it up two years ago.” He looked at me with the most sincere face and just said, “Awe babe, you can’t think like that.”

I didn’t know what to think. I still don’t know what to think. We have all of these expectations and all of these rules around dating. He was never anything but honest with me. And if I love him, don’t I need to at least give him the chance to get there? But I’m too old to wait. Aren't I? We aren’t 16 anymore. The longer I wait, the less of a chance I have to find someone else that I think would be compatible with me. Or not even that, but to find someone I have chemistry with the way I have chemistry with him. It's going to be nearly impossible. It’s a numbers game when you break it down. And the percentage of men that I’m fishing out of is sooooo very tiny. Like, 0.00002%. Maybe even less.

You know what isn’t fair? The fact that, no matter what our parents did, they fucked us all up somehow, because no one told them what the world was going to become. How could they have foreseen this? Think about how much technology has changed over the past 30 years - how much our lives have changed over the past 30 years because of that technology. How much our social structure has changed and been integrated into technology. Now multiply that by, let's play it safe and say 5; I really think we are moving at least 10x faster when it comes to the progress of technology now. How could anyone prepare their child for the world they will be an adult in? It is nearly an impossible task. I wish my parents understood that I get that now. That I understand now.

At the end of the day, no one really knows what's going on. We're all just making it up as we go along. Welcome to your 30's - where you are literally faking it until you make it.