An Okay Spreadsheet

Life was not supposed to be this way. I'm not exactly certain what way it was supposed to be, but this isn't it.

I was looking forward to this weekend as I always look forward to a weekend during which I have nothing or almost nothing planned. My life is so busy and days or whole weekends with nothing in them are a blessing. These past few weeks have had me running, so knowing I had three whole days with nothing much to do had kept me going. And, as usual, this afternoon, seemingly from nowhere, I was hit with a bout of extreme loneliness, as I often am on three-day weekends during which I have nothing or almost nothing planned. A hideous Catch-22.

I have no idea how I have wound up in my late thirties and single. Absolutely no idea. It's as if it is calculus. That is how little idea I have about it. I don't know why this is my path, I don't know if I did something or a series of somethings to wind up here, I don't know if perhaps it is just fate.

I've learned quite a bit about Microsoft Excel over the past couple of weeks. (How did I get along this long without knowing the simplicity of formulas or that dragging a row that starts with "Monday" and "Tuesday" will autofill days of the week to infinity?) Tonight I was picturing my life like a spreadsheet with the bottom right "Total" cell being empty where "marriage" should be. All the experiences that supposedly lead to that are effected by some formula that adds up to it - in this spreadsheet. And then I am able to play around with scenarios, changing out a cell that says "Thailand" with a cell that says "staying put" or retyping a cell that says "Simmons" with a cell that says "URI" to see if the word "marriage" magically appears in that bottom right cell. But, even if I could have that grid on the screen, it's too late to change any of the cells. Time passed cannot be changed. It's wasted energy and wasted fantasy to even wonder about it.

It's been a good while since I thought about he-who-shall-not-be-named, and tonight I was besieged. A symptom of the loneliness of the three-day weekend, no doubt. I remembered, all of a sudden, that he knew he was being sent away on Army mobilization before he kissed me the first time. That he wooed me with great vigor, knowing all along that when he had me hooked he would then tell me he was leaving, pretending that he'd just learned it himself. How horrible. How really really horrible. The feeling of horror isn't as strong now as it was when I first came to know this nearly 8 months ago, but my disbelief is. It just sits on top of the pile of other disbelief I have. There are so many things I just cannot believe.

I cannot believe that I sleep alone each night. I cannot believe how long it has been since I had sex. I cannot believe that I am not allowed to care for someone as deeply as I wish to and have the capacity for. I cannot believe that nobody cares for me. (Friends and family do not enter into this equation.) I cannot believe that I wasted some number of years not caring about finding a partner. I cannot believe that still, today, I am very very shy and have a hard time engaging in conversations with men in many situations. I cannot believe that about half the time, I am rejected when I reach out to someone new and ask if they'd like to get a beer sometime. I cannot believe that more than half the time, when I do get a beer with someone, I find that I'd rather be talking to my roommate or reading a book than carrying on the conversation I am in. I cannot believe some of the people who I am connected to on FaceBook have found partners and I have not. I also cannot believe how rude that last statement is or how vehemently I feel it. I cannot believe how embarrassed I am sometimes to be like a broken record about my singleness to some of those around me. I cannot believe that both my siblings are married and both of my in-laws' siblings are either married or engaged. I just simply cannot believe any of it.

This disbelief is new. For a long while now, I've been actively engaged in looking for a partner. For him. Wherever he is. (I've always thought there are many "hims" who would be great for me, I use the singular for simplicity sake.) All these years that it hasn't worked, I've just thought I wasn't trying hard enough. Or perhaps I wasn't being forgiving enough. Or maybe I wasn't being charming enough. I always thought it was something fixable or make-able. Now I don't think that. I only know one other person who has tried this hard to find her partner, and she's now in a new relationship that I hope will work out for her. But everyone else? Not so much effort. (Don't get me wrong - the RELATIONSHIPS are effort - I know some folks with what I would consider an inordinate amount of relationship effort - but I mean the meeting part.) Why haven't I ridden up the chairlift with a guy who asks me out for a beer apres ski? Why didn't the guy in line at Chacarero that day - the one who I talked to the entire time about the Mango Mash soda I had chosen - ask me for my number? Why did the friend of a friend who I worked up the guts to email and ask out for a beer reject me so swiftly with a "no offense, but I'm not interested" response? I'm just not sure. Perhaps it IS me. Perhaps I'm like those people who audition on American Idol, whose family and friends should definitely have told them they cannot sing for shit. Maybe I am really not attractive and not good company and nobody ever tells me. It's possible. There's things I don't tell those in my life. Maybe everyone's been sparing my feelings for years.

All I know is that other people meet. And I seem not to meet anyone. I go through my days and nights, and I don't come across interesting people who are single. I am actively engaged in lots of things, and none of them bring me closer to anyone who I might end up loving. And so I go back to the disbelief.

Occasionally, I make a comment about how thankful I am to be single. Usually cheekily, in the wake of some idiocy someone's partner has done or said. And yes, it's nice to not have to ask anyone before I make plans or negotiate someone else's family on top of my own. But none of that, for me, is worth what it means I don't get. There are those who don't care about marriage; who see the single-person benefits as outweighing what one might get from a partner. I am not one of those people. I'm pretty sure all that compromise is most likely worth it in the end. Watching my parents for 36 years has led me to be this sure.

I've been very very scared for a while now that if I do end up alone for the long term, that it'll change me drastically in some way I cannot predict just yet. I cannot help but think that change will be negative. I work, though, to put support beams in place in the foundation of my life so that won't happen. I maintain friendships, I strive to be a very good aunt, I reach out to those who need help. I do all this because I care, but I also do it shore up my own dunes. To make sure that if I need the favor in reverse, it'll most likely be there. Because I might not have that person who HAS to be there for me, I need to fill up with people who would WANT to.

We singletons are not taken seriously sometimes. We don't have partners to drag us away, we don't have children to take up our time, some of us don't have houses to maintain. And so we are considered less than actually grown up. I feel this regularly. It is another thing I just cannot believe. How is it that someone who has been financially independent for 14 years, who put herself through graduate school, who travelled across the planet and back - how can this person not be fully adult? And yet, I am not. Now and then, I even treat myself that way.

As it often is when these kinds of thoughts enter my head, it is late right now. I cannot sleep. I am, 99% of the time, a very good sleeper. Yet, every six months or so the doubt-tapes begin playing and I can't make them stop. And tonight the result is this post. Perhaps before I make it go live, I should go back and re-read the few other posts about my alone-ness and make sure the broken-record tracks at least have a few different chords. I won't though. This is my story tonight, and so it shall be recorded. With a tiny bit of luck (and perhaps some more effort on my part), I'll re-read this the night before I am going to walk down the aisle and I'll laugh. Or I'll re-read it when I'm 66 and off to my brother's for Sunday dinner with his kids and his wife because I am the fun, single aunt who the kids can't wait to talk to, even though they are already graduated from college and one is engaged and I'll sigh for a moment, but of course, I'll be okay.

Because if there's one thing I always am, somehow, no matter what, it's okay. And that is what I assume is in that bottom right corner of the life spreadsheet right now, rather than it being empty - "okay".