**Note: As part of my I AM UNEMPLOYED AND HAVE LOTS OF FREE TIME thing, I have been cleaning house and finding lots of old writing that I never posted or never finished. This post was written last fall and though it was complete at the time, it felt too personal to post. And…kind of depressing.

However, I’m pleased to report that my life is much, much better now compared to when I wrote this post. (And that says a lot, considering I did date someone new shortly after writing this and it actually did end in disaster. Oof.) For whatever reason though, I can’t seem to stay down on myself for long and so I still believe in love and I still think it’s worth it, regardless of how it turns out. I’m posting this because it’s a snapshot of my life and something real that I was going through. Even though I’m not in that place anymore, it feels right to admit that I once was. Just in case you are too. THE END. **

I knew we were over when we couldn’t make it a week without a fight.

When he would bristle too easily over something I said or did, over and over again, unable to be kind or fair. When the snapping would escalate to yelling and I became someone I never knew I was: a girl who screamed at her boyfriend. I didn’t know I could get to that place until I got there. And it was too late to go back. So I left.

He was away on a trip at the time. The night before, we had screamed at each other over the phone. He had had too much to drink and I spent most of the phone conversation sobbing, trying to understand how we had broken each other down so much. How we had once been a pair of cuddlers on the couch in pajama pants on winter nights, eating Indian takeout and laughing at the television and now it was suddenly spring and he was out of state and I was driving to his apartment to collect my things.

My knuckles clenched the steering wheel as I drove, almost emotionless, methodical. Parked the car, opened the metal gate, walked up the steep wooden back steps, as I had so many times. Key into the lock, screen door slamming behind me, up the two flights to his room, my sneakers nearly silent on the stairs.

It was the sight of the books on the shelf and the coins in a jar, his room with the slanted ceilings and the lopsided window frames, that caused me to finally break.

I grasped the doorknob for support and I wept.

I’m not sure how long I stood there.

I eventually began tidying while I cried, trying to find solace in having a task. The tears kept coming so I kept moving. I made his bed. I organized his bills into piles on his desk. I placed fresh daffodils in a vase. I swept the wooden floor. I gathered a hair brush, a pair of boots, a book, some socks.

And I left.

Heart heaving in my chest, I drove away or attempted to. From the broken person I had become. Of the mess we had made together of each other.

…

Years ago, an acquaintance commented that I would hit my peak at twenty-seven. “Twenty-seven,” he had said. “You will blossom and you won’t be able to keep men away!”

I’m not quite sure I have blossomed but something must’ve been in the air at the end of the summer. And this is how it seems to be for me and most women I know. Months will go by with no one in sight and out of nowhere, they’re everywhere, swarming around like bees. It’s as if something clicks into place inside you and suddenly every man’s head snaps up in attention. In early September, I was asked out on four dates in a week. 27 indeed.

I don’t know what to do with attention like that.

Part of me wants to say yes to it all, fill up my calendar and go out every night until I crash and burn.

The other part wants to stay inside because dates are a risk I’m not sure I want to take.

Being single is puzzling.

Being single and overly-analytical is even worse.

I want to feel sexy and desired, want to feel as if I belong in this world where we fall in love and partner off and someone out there thinks I am the most beautiful person he’s ever known.

But I don’t want to be broken. I don’t want to sweep the floor one last time while I cry or scream into a telephone or sob so hard that I fall into a late afternoon nap, so drained I can’t stay awake.

And yet, this is the risk I’m supposed to take.

Or one that I have to take, if I’m ever to join the world of ‘normal’, where it isn’t enough to be alone, you need to complete a pair.

And yes, there are lessons learned. There are things to look out for and things to be aware of and things never to try again. You can try to find someone who likes more of the same things you do or who likes things that are completely opposite. You can find a man who is kind both to the waitress and to animals, someone who makes you laugh harder or someone a bit more serious. But as much as you can use your past experience to go forward, you never really know how it’s going to end.

I’m supposed to buck up and face the world anyway, open my arms and let everyone see my hot twenty-seven year old self. I’m supposed to relish in the attention of men, snatch up numbers and go out to dinners and flirt. It’s supposed to make me feel something, people around me taking notice, people thinking I’m an attractive candidate for the open position of Their Co-Pilot.

(I hate when people refer to their significant other as their co-pilot. How can someone help you steer when you’re the only one who knows where you want to go?)

I am flattered by the attention and grateful to be seen and heard. It does make me feel something when someone takes notice. I feel proud that I’m someone somebody wants to be with. But sometimes, I’m overwhelmed. I’m not sure whether to say yes or no, to go out or stay in and I freeze, paralyzed as I volley choices back and forth in my head where they bounce around like tennis balls.

There is that tiny piece of me, living deep down in a place I never want to see, who is still resentful.

Resentful of two pairs of pajama pants on a couch that spiraled into yelling and words taken the wrong way. Resentful of snow days and hot tea and loving conversations that dissolved into tears and confusion and pain.

It’s just that when I get very quiet, so quiet my mind is no longer racing and the events of the day no longer distract me or fill me up, so quiet that everything left lurking within me gently rises to the surface, almost without me knowing, I resent that I have to start over at all, so distrusting am I that everything won’t once again end in disaster.