We will return to your regularly scheduled blog at some time in the near future mostly because I know no one wants to read my complaints about the patheticness (which should totally be a word, spellchecker) of my life and partially because I've finished watching all the episodes of The Office and won't be faced with the distracting romantic known as Jim Halpert every day. So really, I'll return to normal (which is apparently an enormous hatred of all men-kind, according to my roommate) after I get this all out.
First off, universe, what is with all of the marriage hints invading my life? No, really, I want answers. OK, part of that's my fault because there have to be at least 4 weddings in The Office (by the way, the first episode I saw was Jim and Pam's wedding and I had no clue what was going on; so much better the second time; LOVE!) but, really? I counted 12 status updates that had to do with marriages, I have two awesome friends who are getting married and are definitely not at fault here at all, I've heard marriage hints on the radio and then there's this site, LoveGivesMeHope. It's like MLIA, except super sweet. I can't call it pathetic, but it's the kind of stuff that you read when you either want to cry and/or make that awwww noise that you make around babies or small cute creatures such as hedgehogs. You laugh, but really, hedgehogs, the cutest things ever. Anyway, half of the stories on this are cute old couples and I cry when I read about old people who've been together their whole lives. The worst one? Actual tears on my keyboard over this one:
My grandpa is 85 years old.
Today, I just found out that ever since his wife, his true love, had died, he put roses on her grave every Sunday.
The drive is 2 hours away from where he lives. She was 29 when she died.
Listen, I want that. Well, I don't particularly want to die when I'm 29, but if I got to live with that kind of love for whatever amount of time, I wouldn't mind. The worst days of my life are the days when I'm afraid that I'll be alone for the rest of my life or will live out my days with a husband I don't really love. I can see that happening, too, that's maybe the worst part. I can imagine a future alone. I can't see a future with anyone. There has to be something wrong with me because your answer to "Where will you be in five years?" shouldn't be "Alone."
It's just frustrating. I know I'm not old. I know that I don't need to worry about stuff like this. Some people go to college expecting to find "the one" (oh, no, I just became one of those people who puts quotes around "the one") but I also know that plenty of people don't get married straight out of college like plenty of people don't get married straight out of high school. You wait for your professional career to settle down, or you wait until you find somebody who makes you change that around. People meet people in grad school or at work or just going out somewhere... it happens all the time and you just have to be patient.
At the same time, though, you wonder what you're doing wrong. I mean, should I try harder to find someone, really put myself out there? I could dress up more, expand my wardrobe to something beyond jeans and a t-shirt and stop buying shirts from the guy's sections (but really, the best shirts are from there- my cookie monster shirt, my Led Zeppelin shirt, my glow-in-the-dark Batman shirt, my Star Wars shirt), wear make-up more often, actually care about my hair... smile at a guy every one in a while. It's just that there really hasn't been anyone (loml excluded, but really, eventually I'm going to have to stop lying to myself) worth dressing up over. I mean, I do go to Carolina, and while the gender ratio isn't that bad, once you take out the athletes, the frat boys, the guys who are taken and the guys who remove themselves and other guys from the dating pool, it's slim pickings. I just don't think learning to walk in heels is going to help that much.
Most of the time I complain about being single so that people will contradict it and make me feel better about myself. It's one of like three things that I do this for. You know, I like being independent. I like having my own space, my own thoughts, my own feelings, no matter what they are. I like being able to choose to do whatever I want to on Friday night without having to consult someone. I like having complete use of my phone without having to text somebody super frequently or, worse, call them (idea-since no one really uses italics anymore, can they just be the universal sarcasm indicator? Because then the whole last sentence would have to be in italics). I like having something to talk about other than my relationships. It makes me a deeper person and people can hear about the things I'm really interested in, not just some boy they've never met and don't care to know about. Really. It's great. And it totally gives me time to practice my witty comebacks and piercing remarks that I'll need in case I ever have to have a heated discussion over something significant, like the best kind of coffee or the proper placement of a television with limited available spacing. Why would anyone ever give this up?
Have you ever seen me on a clear, dark night? I get left by the people I'm walking with because I can't tear my eyes away from the sky. It's kinda pathetic, but I love looking at the stars, drinking in as much of the sight as I can before clouds take it away or dawn comes to remove it more permanently. I can see why people in love stare at each other. And I know that there's more to love than what we've made it into, more than mushy Valentine's Day crap. It's something fierce, it's supposed to change you, it's supposed to bring out the heroic, the best parts of humanity and make life on Earth something worth living, not just something you have to sit through until you get to the next good thing. It doesn't belong just with the lovers, it carries throughout the world into families, through the Church, through people helping people, caring for people, making a difference, loving the planet we're all stuck on, dreaming up ways to make this whole place better, making it the way it could be, not just the way it is. Love isn't some intangible thing that just floats around, waiting for a breeze to blow it into the hearts of unsuspecting young people high on hormones, it's this crazy combination of emotions and determination that drives you to become someone worth becoming, to bring people up with you, to lift us up where we belong, regardless of who we are.
I don't know who lost that, or when, but I want it back.
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