On Feeling behind in life

Two days after my 35th birthday, the guy I was dating texted to inform me that he and his ex were going to give it another go.

His text, while it stung, wasn’t surprising. I didn’t exactly see our dalliance going anywhere. It was losing the vision, the plan, that stung most.

Each year, for the last seven years, depending on the nature of my romantic status, I’d rejiggered the plan.

With someone? All issues and incompatibilities in the relationship were ignored, and I just focused on the future life we’d build together — no matter how ungrounded in reality that was.

Single? I’d meet someone, that year, within six months. I was sure of it. I’d make sure of it.

With this need always gnawing at me, the filter through which I observed first dates and potential partners was full of holes, causing me to wade through dozens of several month stints with guys who “weren’t ready,” and “needed time,” but who I thought I could change. I was a magnet for them. 

Being behind in life, time running out, and with it, all the best life partners dwindling in availability, is a fear nearly every client brings to me. 

It’s one of those I’ve chewed on over the years, thinking How do we grapple with this?

Rationalizing with the fear— and in ways, attempting to outsmart it with a “plan”— seems initially helpful, but ultimately proves itself to be futile.

It’s what I did for years. The dance of: Ok, I’ll meet someone by 35, we’ll get married by 37, I’ll have kids by 38. And then relationships would fall apart, people would flake, or most of all, I couldn’t tolerate faking it anymore. I couldn’t keep up the performance surrounding the lie — I didn’t actually like this person enough to want to share my life with them.

A few months before I turned 35, I dated someone for a total of two months. Within that two months, we’d entered a committed relationship. When that person said ‘I love you,’ I said it back (and didn’t mean it). We had our eye on a property to buy upstate, we had visions for an urban wedding. It was all a charade fueled by my need to make something work. When it inevitably fell apart, it was like hitting this person I’d strung along with a Mac truck. I felt awful.

It was more so the hurt I caused others — less my own loneliness and concern — that forced me to really examine my behavior.

And then there’s the alternative landscape — crickets. No one to entertain. Or perhaps a person who’s been in the background for quite some time, who keeps the deepest fears of never meeting someone, never having it work out, at bay. But you know, deep down, they’re never going to become that something or someone.

My ability to make things work, to make something happen, has served me well in all other areas of my life. It’s at the root of my tenacity, discipline and drive as an entrepreneur. It plays a role in my ability to pull together a bang up dinner with half a purple cabbage, an almost empty jar of pickled peppers, and pack of chicken thighs nearing their expiration date.

But in the realm of relationship, of building a life with someone, it has royally blinded me. In ways I wonder if it has delayed my timeline. Ok, in truth, probably not. I do trust the timing of my life. But if I had it to do differently, when I was in the throes of fear over when it was going to happen, if it was EVER going to happen….

I wish I’d slowed down.

The kicker is that the very fear we face — the delay of meeting someone— is in direct conflict with the act of slowing down, getting to know someone, really considering– is this it? What do I feel? What am I forcing? How am I lying to myself?

I only ever really witnessed what I was forcing on the other side.

I see the same thing in clients: They cling to someone and the second it falls apart or they can no longer keep up the performance, it all comes out.

Their drinking really was not ok with me.

Their views on gender roles really did not sit well.

Their mood was really volatile. I didn’t feel safe around them.

They never really asked me about myself.

The same was true for the guy I said I loved but I didn’t. We were so utterly wrong for one another, but for a period it felt good enough. And most of all? 

He was willing. He was WILLING. He had the same life vision. He wanted it now. In the realm of timelines, his was as desperate as mine – and for a period that felt wonderful. I never had to question his desire to commit or his interest in me (a real balm for a fear of abandonment).

I still dance with the struggle of time and where I’m at in life. I look at the size of other people’s houses, I look at the size of other people’s businesses. If I’m not careful, I’m quick to put myself behind — to hold the belief that I should have these things by this point in my life and the fact that I don’t speaks to my error. My failure.

That’s a well worn groove for must of us. I.e. self blame. If something isn’t the way we want it to be, let’s make it our fault. If It’s our fault, it implies we do have some level of control. And round and round we go.

The incredibly annoying truth is that I met my husband the second I let go of the timeline (I know, I KNOW. Damnit.). And we can’t fake that letting go. It was less of a letting go and more of a….I can’t keep going like this. I’m tired. What would it look like to just BE for a while?

Most of us hear/read these things and think “Ok! I’m letting go!” And within a few short weeks we’re all… “Now where is he?”

My let go moment wasn’t without sadness. It wasn’t without longing. My heart felt really tender. I felt tender. It was more like settling in for a long nap.

The desire hadn’t gone away. I still wanted to share my life with someone. I still felt that sort of well of sadness. I just couldn’t keep coming at it the same way. And so I didn’t.