The Final Countdown

Soon I won't be a "twenty-something" anymore; I am on the verge of 30. And then what happens?

My life is going to be perfect. Everything is going to magically fall into place and fix itself and I'll be happy and I won't need this blog anymore. Because that's what happens when you're in your thirties, right?

People are getting engaged and married and having babies and here I still am, still trying to sort out the mess of the last decade and can't seem to see the light at the end of that tunnel. I was told that it does get better once you turn thirty, but I feel like it's in such an ambiguous way, like when they do those "It Gets Better" videos for the bullied kids. I'm still living alone, waking up hungover, eating junk for dinner, pretending to give a shit, letting others believe this charade I'm putting on.

"Oh, I don't even know if I ever want to get married. I can't even fathom what love really is because every time I thought I had it, it was all just bullshit. Maybe love doesn't even really exist - not in my universe, anyway. I just can't see myself living with someone and settling down and doing boring stuff and merging our things and our personalities and our lives and our groceries."

That's all my bullshit. My wall. My defense mechanisms.

I watched this week's episode of GIRLS and I realized more and more how much I can relate to Hannah, when she says, "Please don't tell anyone this, but I want to be happy. I realized I'm not different. I want what everyone wants. I want what they want. I want all the things. I just want to be happy", because these are the same things that I say to myself; these are the same things that I feel.

I self-deprecate and I engage in behaviors that aren't good for me. I keep people at distances even when I want to draw them so close and so near to me. I try not to let people in and let them get under my skin and then when they do, when I feel things, when I hurt like normal people are supposed to, I'm afraid and offended and scared and brush them off, shut back down, shut them out. Because I want to feel things and I want to let people in and I'm not sure I remember how. I've had people playfully call me a cold-hearted bitch before, and maybe they've been right all along. Maybe everyone else can see it but me.

........

My friend and I had a conversation about how we let the wrong people fill certain voids in our lives because we hope the right people will come along and take their place. Sometimes I feel like I'm just cramming all these people into this void to stop an open, gaping wound; staunch the hemorrhaging of all my emotions. I spring a leak and then just use someone else to plug the hole. It becomes a never-ending cycle and I'm never happy.

Emmett told me that I was never going to love anyone until I learned to love myself. He said even if I got my dream job and found the perfect guy and moved back to NY, I'd still be miserable and he's probably right. Everyone makes it sound so easy, "loving yourself". I don't even know if I know what it means to love. When was the last time I felt it? I thought it was with Emmett, but he told me that he didn't love me, was never going to love me. And I look back and try to think who else might have loved me once before? Did I know? Did I remember how that felt? How I could try and close my eyes and go deep inside myself to search for that feeling's warmth and bring it to the surface, smell it, drink it in, use it to satiate this hunger. Use it to help me remember and revive the love that is supposed to be inside me, inside all of us.

..........

So here's to the home stretch, the final year before I turn 30. The quest for me to see if all the rumors are true. That life can get better. That I can learn to love myself and others again. That I can be that emotion that has evaded me for so long: Here's to the pursuit of Happiness.