true confessions of a lonely girl

This entry to Post Secret this week touched a nerve with me. I often feel this way ~ not about everything, but about some of the most important things. Acknowledging that you want things is hard because it puts you out there, makes you vulnerable. Or feel vulnerable at any rate. And gosh, don't we just hate feeling vulnerable?
















This postcard could be referring to any kind of want, but it did make me think specifically of love. Maybe that's not a surprise to anyone. Maybe it made you think of love, too. At least if, like me, you're single and wish it wasn't so. Confessing this is hard enough even when we have some confidence that what we want is coming our way. There's just something about saying it out loud that feels like you're tempting Fate and dooming yourself.

But it's even harder when you don't have that confidence. I still have high hopes of getting a novel published one day. I think I still have a ways to go in my career. That I want those things is easy to admit because I see them as possible. But the idea that I am going to find someone to love, who loves me, seems more and more unlikely with each passing year, and consequently it gets harder and harder to admit that I even want that. I certainly do if asked directly ~ I'm not going to lie about it ~ but there are very few situations (ironically including an occasional blog post :) ) in which I would volunteer the information.

I think the core reason for this is that I hate the feeling that I'm giving people some kind of free pass to feel sorry for me if my wishes don't materialise. I hate that I feel that. I think there are people who will see me as a failure if I never get married (whether or not they ever say it to my face) no matter what else I might achieve. It irks me that there is a part of me that will agree with them, even though all the other parts will be scowling and thinking how illogical it is to judge personal success that way...long years of conditioning I suspect.

It's funny. I wanted to simply end this post by saying, 'So yes, I want to find someone to love, who loves me, too". Yet my fingers hovered above the keys for a couple of minutes before I typed it. Which is kind of the point.