Torn

It doesn't help things that my friends and loved ones keep telling me to just forget the whole thing and that Cary's the jerk and that it's his loss.

It doesn't help because at the root of it all it's only a little bit about him and the rest of it is about how what he said touches on how insecure I am about being single.

I really thought I'd be married by now. Well married. When I was a kid and thought that 18 was old, I figured I'd be married by the time I was 22, 23. And somehow when those birthdays passed and the relationships that took me closest to marriage failed the lesson my mind picked up from that was that I was somehow flawed; un-marry-able.

Un-wanted. Un-loveable perhaps?

For a long time, even when I was in relationships I thought I was ugly, unattractive, on bad days I would use the word gross or disgusting.

Fast forward to today and I see myself with clearer eyes. It's hard, still, to admit that I find myself to be an attractive person, but I can at least see that I am not ugly, unattractive, gross or disgusting.

But then, my mind asks, if I'm attractive, why am I not married? It can't be the logical explanations, mind you. Can't be the fact that I don't meet single men. Can't be the fact that I work too hard and don't get out to play enough. It must be something that's wrong with me.

And if it's not my looks, it must be something else. I guess my mind's been waiting for the opportunity to tell me that I'm obviously single because I'm too old. As if there's a sell by date and I'm long past mine.

I can sit here and write this and know that it's illogical. I can tell you about one of my good friends whose parents didn't meet until they were nearly 40. I can tell you that there is no such thing as too old and I can tell you that logically I know all this.

But that doesn't mean I don't, somewhere in the dark parts of my soul, believe it.

This thing with Cary obviously has brought that darkness, those thoughts to the surface and hopefully that'll let me bundle them up and throw them away, but it's hard and right now I just want to give in to the misery and self-pity and hide away and never leave my house. I don't want to put on a brave face and go do things. I don't want to hear from people that I should be over it or that it was actually a compliment or that it was quite funny, actually, because it was so ridiculous, I just want to curl up and die.

Well, not die exactly, just fade out from existing in any sort of way that Cary can see. Or our friends who heard what he said.

But, then I remind myself of the walk I took the evening I got Cary's email and was told what he'd said. The walk where I got to breathe fresh air and feel the sun and wind on my face. The walk where I took amazing photos and flexed my creative muscles and made myself proud. The walk where I caught a glance of myself in a store window and saw a gorgeous, thin, attractive, intelligent, witty woman that any guy would be lucky to date. A walk that made me feel, even if just for a few hours, better.

I'm just going to have to trust that this too will pass; that this too will fade from my mind. That the intensity of awfulness that's surrounding this right now will go.

I'm just going to have to trust that. But it's a struggle right now and I'm afraid I'm going to run out of fight.

I also wish I could stop wishing he'd email me again, telling me all good things, all the things I'd hoped to hear. I wish I could stop waiting for that. Looking for that.

And I keep kicking myself. If only. If only.

If only I hadn't emailed him. If only I'd just left it at the happy, hopeful, maybe maybe maybe what if.

If only I'd left it at that and been happy. If only I'd left it at that I'd have never heard what I heard and I wouldn't be so.

Torn up inside.

So broken.


Wasted Time - Me'Shell NdegéOcello