They say the truth hurts, but you don’t believe it until you’re actually faced with it yourself. And you know what, it more than hurts, it wretches at your soul; twists it into small, tiny, unidentifiable pieces and then spits it back out. The truth, apart from being a great platform to base your life on, can be cruel, ugly, and downright painful.
What truth does one speak of here? Well, as you may have already guessed, it’s the awful biological clock-ticking, life-affirming, what-this-world-is-all-about truth, the one thing that makes the world go round kinda truth: love. It’s the ‘will I won’t I’ truth. It’s the question that every person capable of love will ask themselves (and the one that they have asked themselves every day of their lives since they were able to process the emotions surrounding love and loneliness) and it’s the reality of the answer they don’t want to hear that they fear the most: “Will I ever fall in love?” But it’s more than that, the fundamental question that is parley to that is: “Will anybody ever love me?”
Striding into my thirties, determined to get the career I always dreamed of having, and wanting and knowing that I will continue to fulfil my travel ambitions was refreshing, but striding into my thirties alone was hard. Beginning a new decade alone and bereft of love was hard and being single for the majority of my adult life has been really, really hard.
More than that, it’s been heartbreaking. Silently heartbreaking. And the truth? What if I never find someone I can share my life with? What if I never find someone whose life I can fit into? What if I never find anyone who can ignite a fire in me? What if I never find that one person who I cannot bear to tear myself away from because their soul matches mine and they fascinate me and me the same for them? What if I end up alone, with twelve cats and a collection of pot plants? And I don’t even like cats! What if I never get married or have kids (although, getting married is not essential to this rant but you know what I mean)? The truth, for me, at 30 is difficult to deal with and I know that as the years roll by, my chances of finding ‘the one’ and pro-creating diminish. Rapidly (stupid biological clock!).
I can try to be happy for my friends (and I am happy for them, of course I am), the ones who are shacked up with mortgages and shackled down with kids. I can put on a brave face when asked to barbecues or events where the attendees are mostly couples. I can smile when I turn up, looking and feeling like a spare prick at a wedding. I can act the happy-go-lucky, free-spirited singleton, the Aunty-knobhead, the opinionated new-world anarchist and the globetrotting nomad. And I can try to hide my couple-envy but deep down inside, I’m sick and tired of being alone. When my fiends go to bed at night and wake up next to the ones they love, I go to bed alone, and wake up alone. And it sucks balls.
What I can’t hide though is my longing; my longing for love. I envy my friends. Most have settled lives and while I know I’m totally not down for that shit just yet, I’m drowning in jealousy, loneliness and an urge to have what they have – love; the love of someone else (who isn’t my mum) – the love of another half.
(A few months ago I wrote about how I am quite happy and content with being free and single at the moment. I also wrote about how fickle I am; this is the part where the two come together and right now I’m secretly laughing at my ever changing moods)
The raw truth though, hurts even more. What if I missed it? What if I was so focused on myself, on my career goals, on my travel plans, that at the last minute, when I had the power to change my love situation, I let it slide right past me? What if I met someone and saw that the signs were saying, ‘stay’ but I chose to ignore those signs and continue walking on the path I had already marked on my map? What if I bypassed the short-cut I was supposed to take? Would the path I chose eventually lead me back to that someone? Do all paths eventually lead to the same place?
I’m not asking for a routine lifestyle, a house, a mortgage, two kids, a dog and a set of flat-pack furniture I can’t assemble; I’m not normal enough for that. I’m not ready for all the sacrifices I’d have to make to have that. All I’m asking for is for someone to love me, and for me to love them back. If you want to call it a ‘relationship’ then so be it, but companionship or an unconventional relationship (one that involved long distances or side-by-side travel), or ‘longevity of a situation involving two people’ would be satisfactory also.
I’d love to be able to meet someone who was willing to give up their time and come away with me on my adventures. I am in the position now where I have no ties which enables me to pack up my shit and move or go somewhere without leaving any baggage behind. And if I met someone of a similar ilk, someone who was willing to throw caution to the wind and take a risk and go, “fuck it, you know what, I’m coming with you”, then that would be amazing! It might not work and it could go terribly wrong but you know what, it could work, and it could be the best thing that ever happened, to both of us. But truthfully, the chances of finding that – probably slim to none.
How I’ve reached the age of 30 without ever really experiencing ‘love’, I’ll never know; clearly I’m doing something wrong. And although I may not really know what it’s like to be in a two-way, loving, long-term relationship, I’m guessing that it’s probably pretty fucking good. So I’ll conclude with this: the truth does hurt and sometimes it takes a lot to accept it but knowing that it’s not the end of the world if things don’t always go your way and having other things to occupy you and fall back on can make it easier; so if you’re with someone, make sure you let them know just how much you love them, and love them with all your heart, it’s the only thing we are naturally, truly capable of.
Chasing Amy-Lou 