My best friend is getting married. There's no way in the world I could be happier for her, but I am also a single girl of 24 with a currently bleak romantic landscape. There's no way this does not back up on me.
I could say that I haven't done the side-by-side comparison in my head, but I would be lying like a dog on crack. In one corner stands BFF: engaged to a great guy, happy, planning huge, fun, sure-to-be-gorgeous wedding. In the other corner lies moi: single (and NOT loving it), prospect-less and assisting in planning huge, fun, sure-to-be-gorgeous wedding. Yes, I am aware of the perils of this sort of comparison, but I do believe that it is useful for gaining a little perspective.
What have I been doing the last 24 years of my life? How is it that I have nothing in the romance department to show for them? No war wounds. No heartbreaks. No wildly inappropriate couplings. No great loves. Have I just been remarkably busy? Have I just not been paying attention? Have I been so incredibly closed off and scared that no one even stood a chance of getting close? Where did that come from? And, seriously, how in the hell do i get over it? Or (the option that i'm sure every single gal has contemplated and dismissed with a swiftness at least once) am I just not smart, attractive, interesting, funny enough to have attracted anyone worth 'settling down' with, if only for a while? Do I not deserve to be loved?
Questions are no fun when you have no answers.
Don't misunderstand. I don't want to be married tomorrow. I just don't want to wake up 40 and realize that not only am I not married and do I not have any children, I also squandered the prime years of my life by not living them to their fullest, in every capacity I could. I understand that the notion of being spouseless and childless at 40 hardly seems like a disaster scenario to some -- there's a lot more to life than that. There's career and travel and books and art. I am most certainly not one of those people.
If I ain't married at 40, I'm running away from life and joining the circus. That's where all the freaks belong anyway! The countdown begins!!!! Drastic changes are afoot.
What I'm Listening to Now: I'm listening to my "The Weepies" radio station on Pandora. They've been spoiling me rotten over there with great stuff from Josh Radin, Ben Harper, Iron & Wine, Indigo Girls, Sufjan Stevens, some Tracy Chapman and a whole lot more people i'd never heard of but who I positively adore. Napster Shmapster!!!
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