Memories.

I was poking around in my hard drive last night and found a few old journal-like entries from 2004 that I wrote in the moment, and just for fun I'll share one of them today, because it's always interesting to see what has changed in one's life over time.

February 14, 2004

It’s Valentine’s day again. When I was younger this day had little meaning for me. My mother never had a valentine; then puberty struck me like lightning and finding a man was my primary goal in life.

At twenty-four and a half I’m beginning to realize this is one goal I need to let go. I spent several V-days leaning on my friends, exchanging cards and eating chocolates together while we mused over loves lost and loves not-yet-found. The last two years I spent this day wrapped in the arms of the one I loved and drowning in his gifts. Not that I don’t still love him, but maturity strikes in much the same manner as puberty. One day I just woke up from the dream that was his doting and realized that I had matured and he had not.

I already have one child and didn’t feel that I needed another one moving in, oversized as he was.

So six months later Valentine’s Day arrived, I knew it was coming, I wasn’t surprised. I was surprised to open my door two weeks ago and find him standing on my doorstep though.

He brought some of my things that he found when he moved in with his new girlfriend and wanted to return them. I think that I handled myself well, considering the circumstances. When he left I just stood in shock and let go of the strong façade I had held on to while he was here.

The shock lasted for over a week, I could not let go of the fact that he had moved on so quickly and so completely. And there I was in my ugly green rocking chair sucking Bailey’s Irish Cream Hagen-Dazs off my spoon. When I crawled out of my depressive funk I took a look at myself and decided that I wasn’t depressed, I was angry; angry that he was so happy and I was alone and miserable.

After breaking up with him I had decided to prove to myself that I was completely capable of being on my own, that I didn’t need him or anyone else. When the anger set in it was because I was torn, I had proven that I could be alone but I was not happy. Two scenarios of my life-to-be ran through my head day-in and day-out.

In the first one my daughter and I live together, just us, we do what we want, when we want. We laugh, we talk, there are no arguments over finances or how she should be raised, no catering to the needs of someone else. In the other one I have a partner, maybe even another child so my daughter has a family even when I’m gone, I don’t worry as much about paying the bills, I have someone to hold me at night, appreciate my cooking and maybe even take me out now and then.

I don’t want to be like my mother, never having a valentine, but always hoping for one. But I find myself afraid to let another man into my life, especially now that I know I don’t need one to survive. Is it worth the upheaval that will occur? I can’t imagine changing my home to fit another person and their belongings, or moving to a home that is not mine with my daughter; the only way to solve this would be for all of us to move into a new home and make it our family’s home.

My brain swims with all the problems and possibilities that a new relationship would bring with it. It is no wonder that I am having trouble moving on and finding someone. Not to mention my well-intentioned sociologist friend who insists on reminding me of my insecurities, dissatisfaction with myself, fear of change, and inability to step out of my space and into the path of an attractive, interesting, self-sufficient, Mr. Right.

Today is Valentine’s Day, today I feel like my mother. She called me this morning, to wish me a happy day of singular misery, and inform me that she was going to spend the evening with her cab driver. It seems that at fifty years old my mother has finally gotten her valentine. I have hopes that this one will be lasting, because I love my mom and want the best for her, but I won’t hold my breath. She is running out of time, and getting far less picky about men as the years go by. I worry that this lack of selective prohibition will lead her to someone who will do her real harm in some manner, but I won’t tell her this, no point in ruining her day too.

My sister called, she is spending the day with her fiancé, the pleasant alcoholic. It’s a shame to label him an alcoholic, he’s a good man and should not be defined solely by that label, but it is true. There should be different terms for different types of alcoholics, terms that include their other behaviors or their personalities while drunk. He is a good-non-violent-loving-understanding-funny-not-too-social-all-day-alcoholic, as opposed to the violent-mean-emotionally-unavailable-unforgiving-rude-puking-bingeing-alcoholic.

At least her phone call brought a smile to my face, as it always does.

I’m spending this day returning summer clothes I bought my daughter, renting sappy romantic films, eating chocolate and pizza, and wallowing in self-loathing; wishing that I knew whether I could call my sociologist friend tonight or if she would be indisposed. I don’t want to interrupt if she is otherwise engaged but I have the strongest desire to talk to her and have her listen to my emotional outpourings and actually understand me. She had a date for lunch today though, and I’m not sure how things went so I’ll wait to talk until tomorrow.

She (and everyone else I know) is constantly telling me how wise I am in the ways of the world. My sister, five years my senior, who has been married and divorced, and engaged twice since then, is awed by my understanding of people and the world.

I think it comes from my naturally observant character, I grew up watching other people, the characteristics they had, their quirks and flaws, their relationship ups and downs. I watched and learned. Now I am so “wise” I can give the perfect advice for anyone, anyone but myself.

Maybe I just keep fooling myself, or I’m making huge mistakes that I just don’t see, or maybe I see them but am too stubborn to bend and have to have things my way.

I don’t want to be alone anymore, but the steps I need to take to make things better seem too distant, obscured, and treacherous for me to reach right now.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll try for them.

February 25, 2004

It has been almost two weeks, reading over what I wrote last I am beginning to realize that my relationship problems aren’t mine alone, they are shared by women all over the world. We are each torn between our biological knowledge of what is expected of us, and the social knowledge we have achieved in this post-liberation period. Every woman today has many important choices to make. We no longer have to stay home all day, cater to men, and find ourselves weighing our self-worth by our husbands and children. We can earn our own worth now. We have biology screaming at us to have children, but now we can scream back if we choose to that we want a job, or to continue our education. We alone have to decide how precariously to balance biology and free will. Do we focus on ourselves and our careers completely? Or hand those responsibilities over to a man and take care of the kids and house, cook real meals and take pride in the fact that we are there for our children when they need us?

Or are we crazy enough (like me) to try doing both of these full-time jobs on our own, and still try to manage to give 100% to everything we do? These are difficult choices and none of them are right. If you give everything to your career, you will find yourself alone, rich and proud of your accomplishments perhaps, but still alone. You will never know the peace of holding your own child while it drifts off to sleep or the pride when she takes her first steps, or he graduates from high school. If you focus completely on your family you lose a sense of who you are, because they are your sole purpose in life, you stop thinking about the things that you wanted to do with your life when you are wrapped up in soccer practice and dirty diapers, nightmares and proms.

Doing both together leaves you at a complete loss, because no matter how hard you try you cannot be all that you want to be in two places at the same time. You will always feel that you are away from your child too often, and that is not good enough. You will always feel that you don’t have the time, energy, and focus that you would like to devote to your work in order to truly do your best, and that is not good enough either.

For women today there are many truly challenging decisions to make, I think that that is why I (and many others I know) have such a hard time with relationships. We have finally balanced our lives, and letting another person into those lives will seriously unbalance them all over again.

Many of us are simply not willing to take that chance. Some are but don’t realize just what sort of alterations that having a man in your life entails. I thought I found a balance, but realized I had just become his new mommy, not his partner. Maybe it is time that I stopped looking for someone who will fit neatly in my life, and just waited until one slips in without my even noticing. There must be hope, because I’m just too young to lose my faith in the world because of a man.

So that's it. That's my perspective on the world. Have things changed? Am I different now, almost two years down the road?