Accepting reality

One of the things about hitting 30 for me has been to try and stop fighting reality, however uncomfortable reality is. It is a challenge because we are always told to do better and the positive thinking and over achieving industry has made us believe we could all have everything we want. This industry tells you that if you didn’t get something, you really didn’t want it bad enough. Really? Is it all that simple? I don’t know what to believe about that statement yet.

But I know I need to accept reality and so as usual I am trying to make a list of what I can and what I cannot change. I have to realise that there are some things, that if I fight, will only drain my energy and make me feel more negative. I also have to give up some control and the ideas of what I thought my life should be at 30, or even stop trying prove to others that I am a functional adult. I am, of course, even if it doesn’t match their definition of it. Bottom line, therefore, that I should be caring less about everything 🙂

Are you sure of yourself?

I certainly don’t even know if I am sure of myself, that’s how confused I am. I rarely have trouble with what colour clothes or shoes to buy or wear. Those decisions are easy peasy. But I have trouble with the big things. Should I trust someone? Is he the One? Does she really mean it when she says she thinks I am a good friend? Or is the entire world laughing at me behind my back?

If there is anything I fear the most, it is humiliation. My worst nightmare therefore is a room full of people I trusted, admired, looking at me and laughing out loudly while I shrink into this ball of nothingness.

And hence I am very scared of people and trusting them. My mother always told me that I don’t judge people well. I trust the wrong ones and sometimes she has been right because I have been heart broken. For the last 2 days, someone close to me has been giving me grief for choosing wrong friends, losers I am being told. By extension that would mean this person thinks I am a loser too my ego chirps up. And I don’t know should I believe this person? Or should I believe the mistake-making me? Are you guys sure of yourself?

Single and happy or single and miserable, no just single?

This is a topic I have struggled with. The cultural narrative of being single beyond a particular age is about either being single and awfully sad about it or celebrating singlehood and the joys of it. But is life that straight jacketed? I intellectually know it isnt but I am emotionally struggling with it. This piece here furthers that point with respect to singlehood :

http://www.rolereboot.org/life/details/2012-01-single-and-happy

(I don’t have any grandiose conclusions to this piece. Instead, I offer this: I think that women, both partnered and single, would benefit from being more honest about the joys and struggles that come with either situation. How wonderful for a single woman to talk about some of the struggles of being single without being automatically judged as miserable, or to be able to share her happiness without someone thinking or saying “Yes, but you don’t have a man.” Conversely, how wonderful for a married woman to be able to admit she sometimes longs for alone time, or that sometimes marriage is difficult.)

 

Sickness and loneliness

I woke up at 5 am today with a massive pain in the chest. For the next 4 hours, I couldn’t move much and had to just keep lying in the same position. There are no doctors in my area until 12 noon and I live alone. I had to wait till then to go to a doc. I have had this kind of debilitating pain before, they said it could be costochondria or a Vitamin D deficiency and I did complete a 3 month course of medicines, so this time the recurrence took me by surprise.

But I was angry at life, God, at my boyfriend at at my own decisions that I end up being alone when I am sick. As I lay down in pain I kept alternating between fear and resolving to do something so that I don’t end up sick and alone anymore. I kept thinking what did I do wrong that it has been this way for some years now. Is it luck? Is is some stupidity on my part? Why dont I have the brilliant support system that everyone seems to have. I wonder from time to time that if I suffer a heart attack and die inside my room, no one might get to know for a couple of days. Sure my parents might call frantically at work and someone might be sent to check on me, but otherwise just nothing, no one. My boyfriend is another town, my parents too and there seems to be no possibility of them or me being able to move to each other and handle the job and finances part.

So I am angry. I feel betrayed by life and I don’t know why I have to have this loneliness to bear and I remember myself to have been lonely forever now. The meds have worked and I feel a little better now but I am just so disappointed with myself and life.

Do I reveal too much?

I am too open with people. Colleagues, friends, everyone knows all that is going on in my life including some details of my personal life. I do tend to censor with people who I feel might take it the wrong way or spread it around, but yes I am pretty open. But I am being told that I should censor more. I am being made to feel guilty about revealing much or becoming good friends with others soon. Do you guys feel its wrong? I agree being open about my problems makes me vulnerable to judgements and attacks but this is the kind of person I have been always. So I don’t really know now what to do.

Google’s nod to the single life

The Google Doodle for Valentine’s day is out. It is a combined tribute to Valentines day and George Ferris, the inventor of the Ferris wheel whose birthday happens to be Feb 14th.

So what does the doodle show? At every click of the love button, images of 2 animals in love pop up on the Ferris wheel and then they are shown going on dates. This covers all kinds of dates, the fun ones, the really quiet romantic ones and even the ones where one of the dates feels it is a disaster. It is a long running doodle.

But the last image is a nod to the single life. The last image is of a single animal. There is no animal shown on the corresponding ferris wheel and the thought bubble of the single animal shows a television. The next image shows him/her happily curled up on the couch with their television set. Though a slightly cliched representation of the single life, full marks to Google to atleast have shown a single person on Valentines. Good fun 🙂

The spiralling and numerous advise me sessions

So I was a normal, intelligent, independent girl until the I-want-to-get-married-now happened. I don’t know whether it is because of the advancing age or it is because I was forever lonely and hoped in my lonely adolescence that a man would be there forever and I wouldn’t be lonely ever, the previous failed relationships, or if it is just plain crazy stuff. But I have been quite obsessed with wanting to get married for the last 2 years or so.

It doesn’t help that you go on to Facebook or even if you don’t you get to hear so and so got engaged, so and so went for an exotic honeymoon etc. This month itself 4 people at work are getting married. It is difficult to not notice the couplehood express whizzing past.

And then you look at your life. Same job for 6 years now, same boyfriend for half that time now, all is the same. I went on to another blog yesterday and saw how I am not the only one feeling that life is standing still because of not getting married. BF and I have had numerous fights over this and it has got to the point where I have issued an ultimatum. As I ponder over our fights over this ultimatum thing, I wonder, how did I come to this? How did I become this woman who wants something so bad and that’s the only thing she can’t have.

The previous years at work also sucked so sometimes I think it is a miracle I am not a meth addict by now. But this constant obsession of bettering my life somehow, getting some change in has taken a toll on me. I am more unsure than ever if anything I want is reasonable or even worth it. It has got to the point that its all I talk about, what’s lacing in my life. Everyone around me has got sick of seeing me this way. I am sick of seeing me this way. I keep asking friends to advise me, help me make a decision. Everyone has a different idea and then I get crazy again.

The hilarious part in all of this is I know what I ought to do and what will be the consequence of which action. But I get chicken. But I also need to stop asking people for advice and keep wondering. This is apt, don’t you think so?

Loser like

So I was told this morning that if getting married was progressing in life for me then God help me. Basically I was shamed for wanting to get married so badly. Its interesting how no one shames you for wanting to get rich and if you work hard at it. Any goal is considered great, but if you want to get married then you are a loser, you have nothing else in your life.

I had a tough life this past 8 odd years. My career start was tumultous and things have settled down there only in the last 1 year or so. I have complained a lot about it and I haven’t really felt good about it or that I could achieve all those dreams I had. Today I was shamed for sharing stories about office politics and was asked when was the last time I wanted to excel at work.

All this coming from the guy I thought I could spend a life with. I don’t know what to say. I have been in and out of depression these last 7-8 years and I know I have been difficult to be around. But still it hurts that he thinks I am a loser for wanting to get married and for not having other ambitions. I know I need to be more positive and need to stop complaining, but to be told I am just not good enough, it hurts a lot.

Confession

I have a major confession to make, I am a special person and this is my super power :

When my super power is at its height, I sit and fume and rage and worry about catastrophes that only I think happen. The side effect of my super power is extremely quick fingers that type furiously on my Blackberry BBM and send waves of discomfort across to anyone who I feel has contributed to that anxiety.

Jokes apart, I made life hell for someone yesterday. I blame this person, my boyfriend, for my single status. I have said cutely, I have said forcefully, I have cried, begged, pleaded and generally been really terrible about being single. I can get along well when we are together but once a few days, I have a transformation and I become this :

When I am anxious, I get into blame mode, then I get angry and I just type out texts furiously. My mother advised me this time when I was home that I do this to everyone and I should wait when I feel overwhelmed before getting on the phone. But when was the last time we listened to our mothers eh? I get mean, bitchy and snarky and I feel like wanting to make the other person wholly responsible for how horrible I am feeling. So I go on and on. Worst part is I know I am doing this but I am never able to stop myself in the act. I always sit and regret later. So does anyone have any bright ideas as to how I can overcome the rage and hopelessness that anxiety brings in? Do you think the single status causes the anxiety or the anxiety was always there and is just exacerbated by the single status? Solutions, solutions pls. Oh wait, now the ‘solve it soon’ OCD will take over.

You know it

You know you have adjusted to living on your own, when you return from a visit to your mother’s and cook for yourself only to tell yourself that you like your own food better now. 😀