General Mopiness

I am feeling all cleaned out today. And maybe a little bit poisoned, too. That wound in my heart is acting up again.

I just read this funny memoir by the writer of "Caroline in the City," this sitcom from the 90s I used to watch. In the last chapter of her book about her basically depressing single life and coming-of-age story, she got engaged, but it didn't work out. She was 39 at the time. Never married. Just had a whole string of failed relationships.

But in that last chapter, she's also come accept that she'll be OK ... and alone, of course. As stupid as it sounds, I cried at the end of the chapter. Mopy and sappy and stupid in general, I cried. I cried for her sense of resignation, which we all now call "peace." Or maybe it is peace, the kind of peace that I, an impossibly hopeful person, am not ready to accept yet.

Even though throughout my girlhood, I never imagined a family life, I also never imagined a lonely life either. I also thought that I would actually be OK being single -- and I am -- but as so many people around me are settling down, finding their own families and forming their own worlds, I wonder about my own. I also wonder about whether all my friends will be too busy being in their own "settled down worlds" that we lose touch, unable to relate to me. Even though I'm only 24, I cannot help but to wonder when and how I can build a world of my own on my own -- you just can't rely on others especially for this. It makes me feel like all the seeds that I have planted haven't sprouted yet -- and I worry that they won't.

That chapter also worries me to feel pain again. That gouging pain in the heart -- you know that one. This is the kind of fear that reminds me "never" and "forever" only belong to classical literature like Beowulf and not the reality of a life like mine. Just because you feel that you've paid your dues in advanced by having gone through pain you could barely make through does not mean karma will actually enact some sort of balancing effect and bring you joy and happiness. No, everyday is a brand new game. Don't you slack off. Always on your guard.

I suppose this is what sunny Saturdays are for.