Anxiety.
I’ve recently been feeling really good. About everything in my life.
22 out of 24 hours of every day I am strong.
Then I crawl into bed. In the dark, I am vulnerable.
Every night as I brush my teeth I say a silent prayer that I am so exhausted I’ll hit the pillow and be unconscious within seconds. That way, I won’t have to deal with the extreme loneliness that creeps in while I lie awake wishing to slip into the world of dreams.
Don’t get me wrong - like I said, I am happier than I’ve ever been most of the time. I’m not one of those people that mopes around and is all sad all the time and can’t appreciate anything in life because one little thing throws them off. I’m really good at appreciating day to day things…. I love my job, I work with some of the best people on earth, my friends are incredible, my family is healthy and happy and amazing, my car starts every time I get in it, cigarettes taste good, coffee is delicious… the list goes on and on, full of things big and small, all of which comprise this life that I live. I have a good life.
I just don’t understand why at the end of even my best days, I can’t shake this stupid anxiety.
A friend asked me (years and years ago) what my greatest fear was. At 15 years old I (without appreciating the weight of the words) vocalized something that would define me as an adult. I am terrified - terrified - of being alone. Not that I can’t sit alone in my apartment and read a book, or that I can’t go to the mall by myself, etc… not alone. Lonely. Because alone isn’t always lonely. And lonely isn’t always alone.
I feel like I should backtrack and go through what got me to this moment… sitting here with this rock in my chest, a vacuum forming between my two lungs…
When I was 15 years old, I started dating my first girlfriend. We were together for almost 4 years before we split up.
Four months or so after the end of that relationship, in the heat of the summer I started dating a second girlfriend. We were on again and off again for two years.
After that relationship ended, the leaves changed and I met my third girlfriend. We lasted almost two years before it fell apart.
When that ended, I was single for awhile, but never really let it sink in. I started quazi - seeing the second girl again shortly thereafter, but it didn’t work out. Too much history, too much baggage on both sides.
After that… I drifted a little bit and ended up dating another girl for a little while.. not that the relationship was insignificant but the time frame wasn’t all that long.
Now we have reached the fall preceding my 25th birthday. 10 years. 3650 days have passed. In that time I transitioned from pre-teen to teenager to young adult to adult. I came to terms with my sexuality, though it was a volatile time, accepted who I was, made amends where I had burned bridges, and turned out, if you ask me, okay. On nearly every one of those days, I had also woken up in a relationship.
The problem is that although I had accepted who I was, I didn’t know whom I had become. I didn’t know how to be myself without someone else. I came to some sort of decision and conclusion that I needed some time to be alone. To learn to be myself with no one else. To not be “the girlfriend girl” anymore but to become “the single girl.”
It’s now been 14 months since that decision. So here I am. Although I’m not ‘the girlfriend girl’ anymore, I am not entirely sure that I am ‘the single girl.’ I’m not dependent on anyone or anything. I am actually thoroughly independent. I enjoy being alone. I like the freedom it brings. I know now more than ever who I am and what I want out of my life…purely for me, not for anyone else. Which is a huge change from the constant sense of planning for two that I had before this year.
But I still crave that attachment, having someone to love and being loved. Waking up in the morning and seeing her face, feeling the warmth of her body next to me. I miss being kissed. I miss having someone understand me, accept me, and stand with me against the world. I find lately that even in a crowd of some of my closest friends I still feel lonely. Yes, they understand me, yes, they love me and accept me, but it’s not the same.
I thought for awhile that it was just about this one person that I had met and it hadn’t worked out with earlier in the year. I wondered constantly (and sometimes, in the dark, still do, although I know now it’s not just about her) what I could have done differently, how I could have been better, what more I would have had to do to make it work. Why I wasn’t enough.
I do everything right… I give you space when you need it, I’m here when you need me. I remember the little things. I bring you coffee, just the way you like it. Or flowers. I pay for dinner. I hold doors. I am chivalrous. And it’s natural, because I want to be, not because it’s forced. I truly believe that you deserve to be treated like a queen. When you look beautiful to me, I tell you. Every time. I am honest, all the time, almost to a fault. I am genuine. I won’t deceive you. I am strong for you, but vulnerable too.
What there is not enough?
Am I too good? Do you think I’m just playing games? That it’s not really who I am? I don’t play games like that. Why would I play with you like that? You are amazing, and you deserve every one of those things, but certainly not games.
And this is what I do in the dark of the night, in that place between awake and asleep, before unconsciousness provides blessed relief. The anxiety gets so intense some nights that I can’t breathe. I wonder if I’ll ever find someone to fill this void… someone to complete me. Because although I feel like a whole person now, comfortable and secure with who I am, although I have grown so far from where I was, I still feel somewhat incomplete. Unbalanced. Inadequate. There it is. There is the word I’ve been looking for. Inadequate.
Does that mean that I will never really be the single girl?
