single-in-the-city

[single-in-the-city]

Failure

Sometimes you fail. And it's a little failure. Not a big deal.

Sometimes you fail so spectacularly that once you get home you pile your weighted blanket on top yourself in the hopes that it merges you down into your mattress.

This week was one of those failures.

Upon further reflection, all you can do is laugh about it, learn from it, and move forward.

Granted, it feels like life has been nothing but failures recently after a string of ghostings, but failing a test that really mattered was the cherry on top.

What no one says about it though, is that successive failure is exhausting. It's draining. It's depressing.

When it happens, take the time you need. Recover. Buy the thing on your wishlist. Do some retail therapy. Make yourself feel better. Whatever it takes, just eventually unmerge from your mattress.

[single-in-the-city]

The Midwest is called such because the men here are Mid.

I spent a week in California and now that I'm older, I'm wondering why I ever moved away.

Holy shit how hard is it to find anyone decent in the Midwest. Even in the cities it's like they're all from the cornfields.

[single-in-the-city]

My Internal Thoughts & The Fear of Judgement

When I was a kid, my therapists always pressured me to keep a diary. To write down my thoughts.

I never could.

I'd start and write them down the first couple of days; my dad would even buy me journals as encouragement, but I could never keep going.

I never knew why, either. Part of me wonders now if it's because I knew my parents would read them. The not-so-subtle questions that would appear at dinnertime when I had stopped writing for several days. "Have you written in your diary recently?" The answer was no, we all knew it was no, but I'd lie and say yes.

I don't know why I'd lie, a fear of punishment, maybe. That if my parents knew most of the thoughts I had were anger against them, they'd take it out on me.

They were never good at self-reflection. I'm not either.

But now, here I am, wondering why I'm finally okay with writing down my thoughts, a digital diary far more public than my paper one would have ever been. Maybe it's because I fear the punishment of the internet less than the punishment of my parents. You'll still judge me, but not in the same way someone who's supposedly family would. Maybe it's because I don't expect your love, your acceptance. Maybe I like the judgement, who knows?

I'm finally writing my thoughts out though. Maybe my therapists would be proud.

[single-in-the-city]

Goodbye Divorce Dinnerware?

When my parents divorced, I received their dinnerware. As a 20-year-old in college at the time, it was kind of nice to receive something useful as a gift out of enduring a period of great emotional turmoil.

However, I'm now 27 and the dinnerware has moved apartments 6 times, and over the years a few have chipped and shattered.

At what point am I allowed to get rid of it?

Like, it's still usable, there's still about 5-6 of each plate, but am I holding onto it because of an emotional attachment of growing up with it? Because I'm a cheap bastard?

It's not my style or taste, but it does the job. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," and all that.

I know that a lot of people put a new dinnerware set on their wedding registries. Do I just take the dinnerware with me until I get married? What if I never get married? Do I get buried with the divorce dinnerware?

I write this as I'm eating dinner off one of the plates.

[single-in-the-city]

🦀 time for crab 🦀

today i summoned 8 crabs! look at them!

🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀

[single-in-the-city]

Expired Fridge Meat

One of the things about being single is that there's no one to tell you to not eat the questionable meat that's been sitting in the back of the fridge.

A couple days past its expiration date, and it doesn't smell funny...for the most part. If the wind blows in the right direction and you get a whiff, you might think to yourself, "Is that the bad meat smell? Maybe it's just regular meat smell and I don't know what meat smells like."

And you decide to cook it anyway, because inflation sucks, groceries are expensive, and gorgeous, gorgeous girls don't waste food in this economy.

It's not just about the meat though, is it?

It's about the risk.

You're not feeding it to another person, and there's no one to be upset at you if the meat does turn out to be bad and give you debilitating diarrhea for the next several days.

The only person your choices affect anymore is you.

The risks you're willing to take start small at first, like eating the expired fridge meat. Soon, you consider taking bigger risks. Pursuing something that they told you not to: learning to ride a motorcycle or maybe dying your hair a bright color.

All you can hope for is that your single period lasts long enough that you reconnect with all the dreams and risks you ever wanted to take, so that when you come out on the other side, you're a better, bigger, more complete version of yourself.

At least, that's what I hope for when I'm staring down at the expiration date on the fridge meat.

[single-in-the-city]

“But then it passed, as all things do.”

— Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

[single-in-the-city]

A dress too tight is always too tight; but a dress slightly loose can be tailored just right.

[single-in-the-city]

[single-in-the-city]

He Expected Me to Fit into His Life like a Puzzle Piece (Part 3)

I wanted to scream. Yell. Interrogate. Shame.

Instead, I just asked, "Say I lost my job, and got an offer from a new one in a different city. You wouldn't want to move?"

"We'd need to talk about it, but I think we could make things work on just my income. It'd be tough, but we could do it."

"But what if I wanted to work? What if I liked having a job?" I responded, venom dripping from the second question.

He thought for a moment, "We'd need to talk about it. I could come up with 10 reasons right now, and a thousand reasons if you gave me some time that could all be sticking points before we'd move."

I furrowed my brows, "That's not a yes. You'd rather let me be unhappy and jobless than find a new job? You know that if you lost your job, I'd happily move and find a new one if we had to?"

"I know. My mom gave up her job though to take care of us kids and it turned out fine."

His mother had been a director at a national grocery chain making big money. His father had wanted to switch jobs, and so she'd quit, and ended up becoming a stay-at-home mom in the transition. However, "fine" was a misnomer. Once the kids were old enough, their mom had started working 2, sometimes 3 jobs at the same time, trying to chase that old high of being important. She most certainly was not fine.

Cautiously, "But you wouldn't do that for me?"

"No."

Where once the silence was a dagger, now it was just a pit, threatening to swallow me whole.

[single-in-the-city]

He Expected Me to Fit into His Life like a Puzzle Piece (Part 2)

Finally, he spoke, "Well, whatever you want to pursue, wherever you want to go; I'd need to find an equivalent job to the one I have, and I just don't think that's possible."

Shot down, without even a consideration. A man who knew I'd follow him to the ends of the earth if it would help him pursue his dreams, didn't feel the same about me.

He didn't have the same respect for my desires. He didn't value my wants and needs as equal to his own. And then it clicked.

He didn't view me as equal.

It didn't matter that we were both in similar career fields, had the same degree, and both were self-sufficient. To him, I was expected to fit into his life as needed, follow him wherever the winds took him, and make it work. To him, my reward for being with him was him. That he was worth it. That he was enough that I wouldn't question how I lost sight of my own ambitions.

[single-in-the-city]

He Expected Me to Fit into His Life like a Puzzle Piece

I don't think he'd given much thought to how, exactly; he was supposed to fit into my life.

However, he'd given plenty of thought as to how I was supposed to fit into his. In his eyes, I would slot right in, like a missing puzzle piece. Interlocking, the joints perfectly aligned, no extra force, wiggling, or smashing corners required.

I'd drop everything for him. He knew that. He mattered.

But when I asked him how he saw fitting into my life in the future: my dreams, my ambitions, my career, he didn't answer.

He wielded the silence like a dagger, plunging it deeper into my heart with every passing second.

[single-in-the-city]

Comfort is an amazingly seductive feeling. But if we allow ourselves to sink too far into it, comfort can become a trap; a dangerous sedative that keeps us from making the kinds of choices that will lead to happier lives.

- Lane Wallace

[single-in-the-city]

[single-in-the-city]

Ticket for 1, Please. Destination: Unknown

There’s something to be said for being the only single person in your friend group.

Welcome to your late twenties, your latest long-term relationship has failed, and while you’ve been in it, everyone else has gotten into one of their own.  You’re finally out, you’re ready to party...and no one else wants to go. They're all about couples' nights, board game nights, and eating dinner with families. Some have even started having kids. Those days of bar hopping until you end up at the club with the sticky floor and praying you don't fall in a gutter outside are now long gone for them, and yet, going out is all you want to do.

If you find yourself on the same train, welcome. It's weird here. It feels a little like limbo and a lot like being lost with a dead phone. You don't exactly know what the next stop is, or even what train you hopped on. At some point there's going to be a stop, and you might get out, look around, and decide you hate it before getting back on. You also might find that you like the stop and decide to stay a while.

Either way, we have to make it to the next stop first.

I never intended to write a blog about being single and trying to figure it out, but I realized that I have too many thoughts rolling around in my head and putting them in text seemed...freeing. Better than having them take up space and hearing their whispers telling me to shout my thoughts to the other passengers along for the ride. If I gave them physical form, life, then maybe they'd stop their occupation. And maybe someone else going through it needs to hear it too.

So, welcome to my journey of trying to figure it all out: the highs and lows, the quest to find self-acceptance, and learning what I actually, truly want for me. And if you're here to watch me fail, well I've got news for you: I will fail. Failure is inevitable and is bound to happen. Hopefully the train doesn't derail on the way, but I'd be lying if I said this journey was going to be easy.

Enjoy the show regardless.