What a (weird) time to be alive (& pursue your dreams)

I’ve always been the type to not date “just for fun.” I would date with the expectation that whoever I invest my time with is someone who will potentially be someone I could probably spend forever with. Obviously, forever hasn’t happened yet because I am currently single as fuck and not exactly dating either. My version of “forever” in the past lasted for about 2 ish years. Then again I started actually dating when I was 16 and my first serious relationship was a combination of me learning how to be myself and myself in a couple at the same time. In short, it lasted too long and set the bar high and low all at once. I was 19 when I fell in love for real for the first time. 22 when I learned that love was a balancing act.  And fast forward to now, 25 — such a weird age. I should be meeting potential life partners at this point. Thanks to technology and the wonders of online dating, my early 20’s have consisted of mainly dinner dates and awkward conversations over mediocre coffee. Which I can’t complain too much about because I’m not always paying for coffee. So where am I going with this?

I guess recently with all the engagements, weddings, new relationships popping up around me (myself not included) I’ve begun to wonder: am I cut out to be married to someone? Do I have it in me to let someone else in again? Sure, the idea of marriage seems ideal for any functioning adult: Someone I can look forward to seeing all the time, a partner in crime and pleasure, someone who will laugh at all my misfortunes (only with permission) someone willing to sacrifice as much for me as I do for them, and so on and so forth. But maybe that’s not for me. Maybe I’m also ridiculously jaded and just trying to convince myself that I don’t need to be focusing on love right now. Love with someone else that is.

Thank goodness for instagram and empowering women poets who shamelessly expressed their need for men that never needed them so loudly that the rest of us could get our acts together and start loving ourselves again, or at least begin the long and never ending process. You’d think that after a couple, several- 5 years you’d be able to let someone come back in to your life without wanting more than just a quick update. Nope. Not the case. Love is funny that way. No matter how much you think you’ve moved on, or have grown up, or redefined love, you always end up right where you left off. It doesn’t matter if there were lovers in between, nothing can change what you had with that person. I’m talking about those exes that don’t really understand how to let go (and the ones we can’t seem to let go of ourselves. After all there are 2 people involved) The ones that at any minute could tug on an invisible thread and you’d be right there again, who insist on being friends; thanking the Heavens for the millionth time at your shot at redemption, to finally say all the things you wish you could’ve said 6 months ago. But then you don’t. Instead, you write letters that you never send, and restart the process of erasing this person from your life for the uhm-teenth time. There must be a reason why you can never spit it all out. Words flow freely when you hang up. But in the moment, you’re paralyzed. Getting an earful from a stranger who watches from the shadows. You’re not fucking Batman. You’re a human being. Start being human.

There’s something about being 25 that doesn’t make this ok anymore. Something about someone purposely keeping you around as second string, bench warmer, backburner, a late night snack (potentially a donut) that makes the back and forth-invisible string tugging bullshit just that. Utter bullshit. And I begin to wonder, who have I been blind to? Did I miss my chance at finding, meeting, and falling in love with someone because I was too preoccupied with the fantasy that an old love was the right love? Did I just fuck myself over by fucking the same guy every other year for 5 years? Who knows? And why is it that despite how consistently inconsistent someone can be the second they reappear it’s like they never left. Stay tuned for a spoken word about how I compare my love to a donut. In the mean time I will continue to invest all of my creative energy into producing and taking part in the type of work that strengthens me as an artist. Blogging included.