It’s hard to know where to start after all this time of being away. I never intended to take this long of a break; I made a deal with myself earlier this year that I would post at least once a month. Obviously, that didn’t pan out. I could blame it on being busy. While truthful, I feel that reasoning is no longer a valid excuse for not getting things done at my age. I’m always busy. Even when I have nothing to do, I’m busy.

I could tell you that I was trying to have a more productive Summer. Use up as much sunlight as I could in the few months it’s guaranteed for us. This is true. I haven’t done as much as I thought I would this year, but I’ve done more than I have in the past, which is pretty good effort in my opinion. And as I look back on the pictures I’ve forced myself to take this year, I’m realizing I’ve done more than even I can remember. I’m now understanding the importance of documenting things the older I get.

But it’s easy to paint my Summer as this picture-perfect season where I’m getting out and exploring more, having fun with my friends and family. While I have been having a good time, the reality is that it hasn’t been without its challenges as well. Some of those have come to a head this last week. And I’d be remissed if I wasn’t honest in saying that I felt nothing short of a mess this last month. I’ve been crying a lot recently because I see parts of myself unraveling; parts in which I didn’t even think were at risk for falling apart. And avoiding talking about them isn’t going to fix them any more than distracting myself with fun summer activities will.

So here I am again – telling you about my hardships in the hopes that it will be the first step in being able to move past them. And hoping that once more, I can help you feel less alone if you happen to find yourself in the same position.

One thing I had been struggling with this season was a specific kind of loneliness. I could feel it creeping up on me in moments where I felt tired and wanted nothing more after a long day than to fall into someone else’s arms and let them lend me their strength. I could imagine coming home after feeling drained and someone else offering to come over, cook me food, or order something while they listened to my day. I saw myself having movie nights cuddled on the couch, cute farmer’s market dates, and having someone hold me as I fell asleep. I wanted that kind of companionship; I long for it. And I know I have a lot of love to give, if you can stick around long enough to gain my trust. I feel as though I’m not a hard person to love, but I am hard to earn in that way. I’m slow to trust and even slower to develop feelings for someone, especially a stranger. But I also know my husband will most likely start as a stranger one day, so I did what any normal person in my position would do: I joined a dating app at the beginning of Summer (I rejoined it at least – for the 3^rd time in my life).

I am a very reserved person. Being extremely introverted, I knew dating this way would be a challenge. Nonetheless, I’m always up for a challenge, so I worked up the courage to reach out and message people who caught my eye. I can develop an initial sort of attraction to others that leads me to be curious about someone as a potential partner. But when it comes to actually seeing the “partner material” in them is where I struggle. I’m very analytical when it comes to relationships, ironically, since I’m more emotional in most other aspects of my life. I consider every minute of every interaction with them.

Where he thinks we’re having a simple conversation about our workdays, I’m judging and critiquing every word choice, every sentence structure, every possible intent behind what I can only assume is his cadence over text. I’m looking for clues that tell me the kind of person he may be in the way he says, “I hope you had a good day!”

I can’t turn it off, so I’m sorry to those souls who have had the misfortune of connecting with me up until now – there will always be something I convince myself you could have done better. This is one of my shortcomings. And I have to tell myself that other people are also only human; they’ll make mistakes and use the wrong words sometimes. They’ll slip up and not consider positions I considered 3 sentences ago. I also need to remind myself that I am in fact, not perfect, so while I’m judging them, I’m sure they’re also judging me and finding things they may or may not like as well. But I do it to protect myself. I have seen and felt the effects of bad relationships too many times to put myself in one again. And with this grandiose idea I have for a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love I feel I deserve, I refuse to settle for anything less than what feels instantly right.

I have convinced myself that I can tell from a first date, along with whatever conversations we had beforehand, that I undoubtedly know if it will or won’t work out, and maybe that’s true. But maybe that’s also just a bullshit excuse to push people away before they get too close because I’m afraid of rejection, or afraid of wasting my time, or losing my independence I just got for the first time this year. Who’s to say what the real reason is?

Either way, I went out on a total of 1 date that was rescheduled twice, rejected two other first dates, and have talked to 3 different guys. All in all, I think it’s fair to say my dating life is nothing very exhilarating. This has been one of the things I cried about this week. Not because I didn’t find someone, but because I realized while I do want a relationship in the future, I value my independence over having a relationship right now more. I’m not ready to give up my personal space and the life that feels like it’s finally mine. I cried because I felt stupid for not realizing the whole time what I wanted; for not realizing a relationship wasn’t what I was looking for at the moment.

And I cried because I felt bad for the guys I had led on to think that I was interested in them when I wasn’t. At the time, I was talking to a truly good guy; we had set up a date. And I knew he wouldn’t fully understand it, even though I decided to be honest with him and tell him that I wish I had realized it sooner, but I just wasn’t ready for a relationship right now. And he was truly a good guy; the kind of guy I would have been curious to see how that first date went. But knowing ultimately that I wouldn’t want a relationship with him right now, I felt I couldn’t let him pay for it knowing that I wasn’t going to let it go anywhere after that.

Truthfully, I’m still searching for that feeling of an instant knowing that it’s special when I meet the right person. I haven’t found that yet, and my heart and my mind would like to think they know the reason why: because I have love for someone they have romanticized in my brain and whom they’ve convinced me I’m in love with…but there are multiple reasons why there are issues with that as well.

Anyway, this has been one of the reasons I’ve cried this week. Another has been because I miss my family.

I had plans to connect with them all more this Summer. I was going to drive to and hang out with my parents more; I was going to plan a trip to see my sister and her family who live in another state. All those plans were thrown out of balance when my car decided she was getting to the end of her days. Suddenly, she needs an engine replacement (something I most definitely cannot afford). The best solution to this issue is trading her in and getting a new car (something I can also not afford but now have to figure out regardless). When they tell you one of the most stressful events in your life includes buying a car, they’re not wrong. I’ve barely even started, and I’m already too stressed out about it. So much so, in fact, that I let it stop me from continuing my search occasionally, which isn’t great for obvious reasons.

One of the reasons it’s so stressful is because I’m genuinely scared to drive my current car sometimes with the way she acts. I know most likely if she dies on me, it will look like the engine just shutting off and me needing to pull over to the side of the road somewhere, but I can’t help but have this horrifying image of me driving on a highway and the front end of my car exploding right in front of me.

The more I think about it, the more I know I need to push myself towards securing a new car. But then I think about the additional bills this will incur. My current car is paid off – I made sure to do that so that I no longer had car and student loan payments each month. And after about 4-5 years of owning her, I was able to pay her off fully earlier this year. Just in time to need to hop back onto another monthly car payment! How convenient, don’t you think?

It’s difficult because putting off finding a car doesn’t ease my current stress about having those payments. I’m not even paying it yet, and I’m still finding a way to be stressed over the money I’ll lose. So, I know the best method is to just rip off the Band-Aid and deal with it, since one thing getting a new car will relieve is the stress of driving. I at least will have the comfort knowing that once I’m in a new car, I won’t have to assume my car is going to dump me in a ditch. Will having both student loans & a car payment on top of rent & monthly bills be mentally draining? Yes. Did I want to have more of my student loans paid off BEFORE I upgraded my car? 100%. Do I still have the fantasy of someone rich and thriving seeing the good heart in me and deciding to either pay off my student debt and/or offer to buy me a car of my choice? Absolutely.

But like so many other things in my life, this is something only I can do for myself…I might as well suck it up and get it done.

And this just plays into a constant aspect of myself that exhausts me relentlessly: I’m tired of having to take care of everything myself sometimes. It just feels like most of my life, even when I’ve been under the care of others, I’ve still felt the pressure of “well, someone needs to take care of it, so I guess it’s going to be me.” Which isn’t true, and I remind myself of the times when things were truly out of my hands, and I needed to rely completely on other people to help me out. But in those times I felt like a burden, and I hate that feeling. And this has led me to ask myself one question: What do you want then?

I want to not do everything myself but hate it when other people do things for me because I see it as being lazy or selfish on my part. I want the emotional and physical benefits of a relationship but don’t want the commitment of one. I want to do well in my job, but I also don’t want to stay there forever. But I won’t want to disappoint anyone there by leaving. And I don’t even know what I would want to do if I didn’t do what I do now. I want to go out and do more things, but I also don’t want to leave my apartment in my free time. I want to talk to guys, but I don’t want to date them.

I want the freedom that having more money brings me, but I almost don’t want the responsibility of being rich. I want to feel happy with where I am in life, because I’ve worked extremely hard to get here by overcoming so many personal battles. But I also want more than what I currently have. More resources, a better purpose; I want more for my life . . . But I don’t know how to get there.

Thinking about all of this over the last week, I’ve realized that I don’t really know myself as well as I thought I did, because I don’t know what I truly want. And I don’t know how to figure it out. Honestly, I feel like somebody I don’t even recognize right now, and I don’t know how to progress on any of these issues with that lingering over me.  

And from where I sit perched at the top of my tower looking down on the traffic and pedestrians as they make their way about their days, I can’t help but be envious of all the people who may not have it quite together but who at least have a plan for themselves and what they’re doing in the moment. I’m positive I have a very skewed sense of other people’s situations in this way; I’m sure there are plenty of people struggling like I am. Who isn’t in some capacity in this type of economy and environment?

One thing that made me sad this week was realizing that I haven’t been keeping up with my hobbies as much as I was before, including posting. It’s a small step forward, and a messy one at that, but I figured I needed to do something to reconnect with the me who was surer of who she was. And if I find I’m a little different now than I was even a few months ago, at least I’ll have found something because anything beats not knowing who you are anymore.

So, I promise to you and to myself that I’ll keep working on it.

You’ll hear from me again soon, and if I find anything that might help us both, I’ll let you know.