F, I totally understand how you feel. Recently, I have been feeling - and this is a very specifically pre-30th bday crisis - that while I have been getting on with my life, working literally every working hour towards my goals and ambitions, feeling that I am still not "there", all of a sudden, it seems that everyone is growing up and settling down. Everyone seems to have moved on: not merely owning a property, but upgrading to their second home; not merely dating or in a relationship, but buying a property with a partner, or in more extreme cases, marrying and having a child. Some friends even have more than one child!
As time goes on, and I am still not in a relationship, I am becoming ever-more independent, and therefore (I know this is anti-feminist, but it is sodding true and I'm just going to say it) even more scary and repellent to men. Even all my friends are now convinced that "partner for life" relationships (or even just relationships) are not for me.
Last week, I had to go into hospital for minor surgery. I had to be there at 7am, and although I am lucky to have so many friends, there was no one to take me to or collect me from the hospital. I even ended up taking public transport home (although that's more a sign of my independence and bloody mindedness than anything else). The whole episode just made it seem so depressing to see a lifetime of this ahead of me – everything being twice as difficult and involving extra planning, not so much because I'm on my own, but because everyone else is
not. It feels as though I will spend the rest of my life in a career path I don't want to follow, struggling financially, with dehydrated skin from constant flying and not getting enough sleep, still bloody studying with no prospect of better times to come; permanently unattractive and repellent to men, and this will only get worse as I get older and more brittle and defensive towards men. It feels as though I will always be renting a room in someone else's flat, have no assets, and not be able to afford a new car or have time to go on a much-needed holiday – and certainly have no one to go on holiday with.
Last week I went to a barbeque at the home of my friends S&S, and although it was lovely, it was yet another reminder of how scarily functional and grown up everyone else is. They have a lovely grown up home with lots of sweet wedding and family photos everywhere, and they managed to pull off a yummy, relaxed meal, in contrast to myself; on the rare occasion I subject my friends to dinner at mine, I run around for days before cursing my demanding guests, then force them to eat weird wheat-free superfoods they have never heard of, while obsessively cleaning up around everyone.
I have spent my post-operative recovery time sitting at home, obsessively checking my blackberry, paranoid that I am ruining my career by daring to be ill for a week, watching mid-morning TV chat shows ("My husband fathered a child with my mother" - nothing like that to put your life in perspective!), and being visited by friends with children, which has been lovely, but feel as though am destroying brain cells by reading Thomas the Tank Engine stories all week and rolling around on the floor pretending to be a train! Raising children is so far removed from my daily life, and although some of my married friends have - and I am SO touched by this - kindly offered to let me stay with them while I recover, the prospect of me staying in their guest bedroom in their suburban 4 bedroom-3 bathroom house with grown-up furniture and kitchen, and two kids, two cars and husband (just the one husband thankfully!) – is even more depressing. I feel cheated out one of life's experiences we are meant to have in our 20s, that I haven't even begun to learn the lessons one can only learn from being in different relationships. I used to think I was wise and savvy and just not vulnerable (for not getting into bad relationships), but now I'm starting to think there is something wrong with me. Not that I'm looking for it, but... why can't people look for ME?! And the whole thing is made worse by the visible signs of aging that are now appearing on my body. Even my bloody armpits are wrinkled because the skin is old and sagging. I don't mind getting older, I just (a) don't want to look older, and (b) certainly don't want to look older or even become older until my achievements and experiences catch up with the number.
I work harder than most people I know. I get up at 4.30 every weekday morning. I work a 12 hour day. I study in the library until 11pm. I train twice a day. So WHY am I still STRUGGLING when everyone else seems to be reaping the benefits of their efforts???
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