Old Maid

I don't know where I am going. I know where I've been. I've lost focus in my life and feel like I'm just putting in time. I actually feel stranger now with a job than I did when I was unemployed. Other people around me have gotten married and are having babies. Some haven't, and their lives break my heart. Mainly because I feel they are spinning, just like me.

We're all spinning in some no-man's-land without anything holding us down and still nothing really happening for us.

I passed on a lot of typical personal milestones... serious relationships, lots of friends, marriage, babies, etc. since I've been so focused on getting things done (education, job, etc.). I've had friends but have kept them at a distance. I've had boyfriends and have squeezed them so tightly with my emotional needs (since I don't rely on lots of friends) that their heads have popped off and they left, headless down an alley. Or acted like jerks and then left.

I've seen friends get married and have babies and then have the world. Or at least act like it. I'm not sure I want that. I haven't so far. I've had boyfriends talk of marriage, break up with me and then marry the next one to come along. I say I dodged a bullet. And crafted a perfectly good candidate for marriage for a total stranger. But then why am I so envious of their lives?

I've had boyfriends waste my time. Lie to me. Keep secrets that I found out anyways (and once didn't let on for years). Only to have it come back and bite me when our relationship was so far gone that I realize I should have let him go when I found out.

People say you'll meet the man you'll marry and just know it. I guess I haven't. And I'm not getting any younger. I was always so focused on school and then later a career to worry about settling down or timing my decisions to find and marry a man. I fear that my time put into myself hasn't really amounted to much. Sound harsh? Perhaps that's why I have no friends.