Reflections

Well, the Twelve Months of Awesome project has just about come to an end. I figured the best use of this final blog post would be to write an honest reflection on what brought me to the project in the first place and whether or not I consider the project a success.

On New Year’s Day of last year, I was just beginning to claw my way out of the worst bout of depression of my life. Twelve Months of Awesome had a number of purposes: To give me productive things to focus my attention on, to remember why I love to read, create, and experience new things, and to try to address the things that pushed me off the depression cliff. There are a number of factors, of course – brain chemistry being one of them – but when it comes right down to it, I know what caused the depression. As my friends were all getting married, buying homes, getting raises, and having children, I was still in the same place I was almost a decade prior. No particularly clear path forward in my career, no home big enough to have a guest room, and at the top of the list in big bold type: no significant other and no children. For a long time, I was fine with that. Then I wasn’t.

I came up with the ten categories I used in Twelve Months of Awesome in an effort to follow as much of the standard advice I’ve heard about relationships for the past 15 years. Often it sounds so contradictory. Work on being comfortable with yourself, but also work on bettering yourself. Get out and do new things, but also go out and do the things you love. It’ll come when you’re not looking, but you can’t expect anything to happen if you don’t try. I thought if I did multiple things, maybe I could find a way to balance out the contradictions and take some steps forward.

So, did it work? Well, unsurprisingly, it didn’t solve all my problems. I am in a much better place, mental-health-wise, so there’s that. And I did learn a few things.

I am, for the most part, the kind of person I want to be.

So often, self-help advice says that if you are alone, the best thing to do is turn the eyes inward and examine what your personality and habits might have to do with it. Hence, parts of this project were aimed at self-examination and improvement. One positive thing I can say is that I wasn’t unhappy with what I saw. I’m not perfect by any means – I harbor some grudges, and fall into a good number of bouts of self-pity – but overall I believe myself to be a kind, hard-working person who tries to do her best with the cards she’s dealt. And on occasion this year, friends have gifted me with assurances that all that is true. In my heart of hearts, I never really believed that I’ve been alone my whole adult life because of some kind of personality flaw, but now I believe it more solidly. I am quirky, and I have some anti-social tendencies, but no worse average.

I am lonely, albeit in ways that are hard to articulate.

When I think about the fact that I spend a lot of my time alone, and it may be that I do so for the rest of my life, I often ask myself if I have a problem with that. Do I dislike being alone? Would it be so bad to continue being alone? The truth is, I’m not lonely when I’m alone. I don’t mind solitude; often I crave it. The countless evenings I’ve spend on my couch, crafting or writing, cooking for one and eating alone, none of that bothers me.

But just because I’m not lonely when I’m doing day-to-day things by myself doesn’t mean I’m not lonely at all. I’m lonely pretty much whenever I’m not alone, because that’s when two things happen. First, I see others experiencing things I’d like to experience, but feel like I can’t have. I go to a wedding alone, and watch one couple commit to each other and so many others enjoying each others’ company. I hear friends talking about double dates and know that if I asked to come, they’d let me – but I would feel in the way. And I watch couples walking down the street holding hands, and I think to myself that even though I’m ok with being alone most of the time, I have no idea what it’s like to not be – and I may never have the opportunity to find out.

Secondly, and relatedly, I feel like I always, always have to be looking. This is when the “nothing will happen for you if you don’t make it happen” piece of advice always echoes in my head. Don’t just sit there at that wedding, go talk to someone! Don’t stare at your phone on the bus, keep your head up and smile at people! I always have to be trying, and it’s exhausting. And that is what feels so incredibly lonely. Over and over these efforts come to nothing – that’s to be expected, don’t get me wrong – but it reminds me that most other people aren’t looking. And that’s what makes me feel lonely. When I’m alone in my looking, in a sea of people who don’t have to look any more. And that leads me to my next point.

I am resentful of other people’s happiness.

I wish this weren’t true, but it is. Every time another engagement, baby, house purchase, etc. is announced, I fight against rather strong feelings of resentment. I’m angry that other people have found what I haven’t found yet. I’m so tired of looking. When do I get to have the contented feeling knowing I found him? Knowing that the search is over? When do I get to plan the rest of my life? When do I get to contemplate the idea of having children, buying a home, travelling without having to round up friends?

That’s the worst part, really. Even if I could get used to the idea of living my whole life on my own, I feel like the world isn’t built for me. People tend to think the problem with being single is not having anyone to face the hard parts of life with – and that’s part of it—but not having a significant other also tends to bar me from other things. Dual incomes allow for so much more flexibility in managing living expenses; an apartment with a guest bedroom for my mother to sleep in when she visits is beyond my reach. Children are a reasonable thing to consider in 2-parent homes; I can get around the biology – adopt, for example – but even if I felt I could imagine managing raising a child alone from a psychological and logistical perspective, there’s no way I could do it financially.

So as I watch other people post happy announcements about marriages, kids, new washing machines, whatever, I feel very resentful that all these other people get to do these happy things and I don’t get the chance.

I don’t like this. I don’t like how hard it is for me to respond positively to friends’ good news. I am generally an empathetic person. This is one way in which I feel like I’m losing myself.

I’m working on it.

There’s very little about this that I can control.

For years, I’ve been looking for a magic bullet. Is there something I’m doing that turns people away? Is there something I’m not doing that’s key – some unspoken secret that I don’t know I don’t know? What is it? Why am I not only single at 32, but single with no relationship history at all? I never found it. I understood some mistakes I made in the past, but never found a map to a different future.

Twelve Months of Awesome was based on the premise that if I’m going to be alone, I at least want to know I did everything I could to try to change that. I got out and did so many new things this year that were so hard for me. I elbowed my way into meetings, showed up alone to social events, struck up conversations with strangers. And what has changed? Almost nothing. It all came to nothing. I thought I’d be more upset about that, but the truth is I didn’t really believe this project was going to change anything. Improve my depression, yes. Make a significant difference otherwise, no.

Instead, what the project did was clarify the rock and the hard place I find myself between. On one side is the cold, hard fact that it’s unlikely I’ll ever meet someone I might have a future with if I just go about my life without making some efforts. On the other side is the fact that the things I am able to do only increase my chances by a miniscule amount. So all this stuff that is so exhausting does improve my chances a little, but it also serves to remind me that most people my age are past this. So what is the better choice?

There isn’t a better one, I don’t think. So much of this comes down to chance. It’s not that I’m fundamentally flawed. It’s not that there’s a secret I don’t know. I have made mistakes, and I know that, but even the happiest couples I know tell me they were lucky. There is no magic bullet. There is only good timing.

I believe a different future is possible.

So what’s the punch line? That last part seems pretty negative. “Well, my chances are miniscule no matter what I do! Life’s a bitch, huh?”

That’s the truth, but not really an accurate representation of how I feel. 

I don’t know why it hasn’t happened for me, and I really struggle with the unfairness of that. I feel like it’s been my turn for a long while, and while I stand here at the front of the line waiting, everyone keeps lapping me.

And it might just continue along that way. I’d even say it’s probably that it will. But unlikely doesn’t mean impossible.

It doesn’t feel inevitable, or even likely, that my life will change. But it’s possible. It’s possible. That’s the mindset I’m taking with me into 2016.

Happy New Year.