reflections

stream of consciousness resulting from too much time in my head...

confession: i think i should've married the first guy who was going to ask me (nearly 8 years ago now).



in this year of travel (i've spent over 1/4 of this calendar year away from my home, no wonder i feel as though i'm no longer living my life), i've had countless hours of time to reflect on my life the choices i've made and where i've landed.



i'm not really sure why i've ended up where i have. i mean, obviously, it all points back to the choices i've made and at the end of the day all points to my biggest fear, losing my independence and sense of self. but essentially in all this managing and changing and pushing people away, i've managed to lose myself anyway.



so here i am, pushing 30, both young and old at the same time, with nothing to show for myself but hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer miles, lots of men in my past and lots o' shoes. not really who i wanted to be.



sure, if i'd chosen to marry that man, i'd probably have the white picket fence and 2.5 children right now, but i also just might have a partner who shared most of my interests, was willing to try new things, and loved me enough to look past all of my fatal flaws - at least until they were the death to our relationship. and maybe, maybe i didn't have to feel the pressure to get pregnant immediately, and maybe if i'd just said it, he would've respected my decision to not be ready to get married at 22. maybe we could've been great, but when i figured out the ring was coming, i felt trapped and twisted and squirmed until i got out and said goodbye.



since then, i've had a string of ambitious jobs, overall crappy and unfilling relationships with many men that i thought i loved and maybe wanted to love but didn't. i'm not even sure if i loved mr. marry me. in fact, who knows if i even know how to love, i've started to think that maybe that's my issue, that i am 100% incapable of loving anyone but myself. gosh, what an attractive trait (not).



i've spent the last year not living my life and feeling as if i might end up alone, as if that might be my penance for all the things and people that have hurt me and that i've hurt in my life.

not really the way i want to live...