The pointlessness of it all
Well! I'm still awake because these thoughts wouldn't stop niggling at me.
From the time I was a conscious being, I knew - I just knew in my bones - that I was destined for Great Love. It was never something expressed. It was just something I knew was coming to me, and I was preparing myself in any way I could think of. I groomed my long, blonde hair, watched in fascination and self-admiration as my bosom grew, and practiced batting my eye-lashes in front of a full-length mirror.
Of course, some of my assumptions about Great Love were incorrect and caused me to make some errors in my preparations down the road. For instance, I thought that experience, and worldliness and a certain level of sexual prowess were sexy (thank you, Film Noir) and that naiveté was slightly laughable and decidedly un-sexy. Funny how it takes losing a thing to really appreciate its worth. Upon meeting someone truly naïve now, I feel the protectiveness it garners and sometimes wish I hadn’t been in such a hurry to rid myself of mine.
But despite my mistakes, I knew it would be ok, because eventually my Great Love would come along and make everything right.
I blame reading.
Books and an inherently romantic nature made me an impressionable and emotional child.
I soon learned that these were not desirable qualities, because nobody likes a touchy cry-baby and eventually, I also learned that romance was something that only belonged in novels with cheesy covers. Of which I’ve read only 2, I’m proud to say. (This of course does not include fanfiction, since everyone knows that doesn’t count as Literature. Ahem.)
I learned to adopt a debonair air about my waiting for my Great Love, professing again and again that “if it’s not there, it’s just not there,” all the while never finding anyone good enough. Rejecting the good guys and wanting - yearning so badly it hurt - to throw myself off cliffs with the bad guys. The bad guys never found cliffs worthy of such sacrifice in my presence…
29 years into this life, it’s hard to keep the faith. I’ve become analytical, a fatalistic realist, and with a whip-like tongue I make people prove themselves to me by their ability to withstand a good lashing, and give out equally in return. I look for good genes, strong wills, healthy doses of self-irony and intellect and no longer consider long eye-lashes or a fondness for roses and flowery words redeeming qualities.
I like the person I’ve become. I’m strong, empowered, smart, interesting, funny, sexy, but sometimes I miss that girl with the big dreams and the big ideas.
I’m starting to let go of her notions now. I no longer believe that my Great Love will come, but I still allow a small part of me to hope. I don’t know why this was the year that dream had to die. Like I said around my birthday, it’s ironic to not feel old and at the same time feel that time is running out. My mother says I’ve always been too caught up in age, and I think I finally understand what she means.
I like my life. I like myself. I like my friends, and myself for the ability to find them and keep them. Sometimes I catch myself yearning for something more, and sometimes I even let myself indulge in that feeling. This year I learned once again that it hurts more to long for someone than for the idea of someone. So I suppose that most of my life I’ve been lucky, because I haven’t met a great many who garnered much of an emotional response in me. I’ve had a few brushes with what I thought was love, but in a way that would resemble the first time you see a thistle: It looks soft, but a touch is sure to change your opinion.
I know now that Great Love will most likely give me nothing but heartache, but I still yearn for it, longing by now to just feel something. I find my expectations every day at a new low, and by now I’m wondering what it takes, what day in a life a woman decides to settle.
Most of the time I’m not lonely. Most of the time, I’m strong and proud and entertaining. But sometimes, when I have to let a someone dissolve back into an idea, the possibility that I’m holding out for a ghost - a romanticized idea of… nothing - rears its ugly head and I feel alone.