I don't read many other blogs. Most of the blogs I stumble across seem to be written by attractive, articulate, funny single women in their thirties, and I don't need to be reminded quite how average and unremarkable I am. Occasionally I find blogs written by miserable, articulate, single men in their thirties: these are slightly better because they make me feel like, however bad things get, at least I'm not them. Miserable single men seem to have a really tough time of it as they can't seem to shake off their negative self-image. Not that it's a breeze for us lasses - we just seem to find it easier to admit we need help. If it were up to me, I'd round up every thirty year old in the UK and book them in to a compulsory twelve month stint of psychodynamic therapy.
My session last night wasn't the easiest, but it was certainly enlightening. As a paragraph-length recap of approximately twenty hours of counselling, this whole thing started because I was miserable. I was miserable because I'd felt left out of my parents' relationship, and by hanging out with unattainables and doggedly offering my worship to anyone who'd look in my direction only to find them boring and unworthy when they reciprocated, I just repeated and reconfirmed this hunch over and over again for 33 years. Somehow I needed to find some inner strength, a feeling that I am good enough, that I don't need to replicate my parents' happiness to be a success, that my life's goal is my own and my own alone.
Thus began my search for inner peace. I reasoned that, if I found inner peace, I'd feel happy with the status quo and stop constantly feeling like I am not good enough and that I need a partner in my life to validate my existence. And, after months of therapy and meditation, it seemed to be working: around the beginning of this year, I suddenly realised that, somewhere along the line, I'd stopped feeling like a failure. The Greek chorus who'd stood at my side my entire life and criticised my every move had shut up, at last. I stopped feeling so ugly, I stopped feeling so undesirable, I stopped feeling like I had to prove myself every minute of every day.
Initially I was elated, but in the past fortnight, I've noticed that my old ways have started to creep back - I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the future, planning holidays and trips, forgetting about my life, the present, which is just slipping by unnoticed. I've meticulously planned lots of events (a busy girl = a successful girl), and had a few conversations about Grania's new love that left me feeling like she preferred him to me, as though her love was finite, that he'd taken my share, that we were in a competition and I'd lost. Turned out I wasn't so happy with the status quo after all.
Yesterday I said I felt like I was at a Y junction. One fork was a path where I choose inner peace, and I relinquish all need for anything. I become totally zen. But I was worried that that option sucks: if you don't crave anything, you never get the rush of getting what you've always craved. So you're kind of placidly happy, which is fine, but I looked at Grania and her Cloud Nine Hundred And Ninety Nine and I think, if I go totally zen, I'll never have that. Which seemed sad. The other fork is where I don't have inner peace, but still have needs and desires that get met and/or thwarted, and along the way there's a lot of pain and occasional pleasure. That's where I was before and it hurt a lot. In short, both paths suck.
But, said my therapist, you're still talking like there are paths. Trodden paths. And I said, oh. You're right. OK, there are no paths. But I'm still walking purposefully in one direction. And she said Mmmm. And I said, shit, I should be meandering, shouldn't I? She said nothing. I shouldn't really be going anywhere much, I said.
About this inner peace, she said. That was what you were trying to aim for? Yes, I said. And that means acceptance, right? Right, I said - accepting and loving myself, warts and all. [NB I don't have warts]. Doesn't that mean, she said, that you have to be at peace with every part of you? Yes, I said. Even, she asked, the parts that need a relationship? And I said, oh. I thought it was going to be a transaction. I thought I'd get inner peace and then I'd be complete and I would no longer need a relationship. I don't know if it's that simple, she said. I suppose, I said, the crucial difference is that one is at peace with oneself, and perhaps a relationship comes along that makes one a bit happier, rather than that one is unhappy, and searches for a relationship to solve their problems. She nodded. OK, I said. I think I can get my head round that.
And so the Y junction became overgrown with long grass.
At the moment, I am in the weird position of knowing that I'd love to meet someone who would join me in the meadow, but if you said 'I've got the ideal man for you, just click your fingers and you'll be madly in love' I'd be too terrified to do it. What's that about? Why would I not want the thing that I really want? Well, because I've been hurt. Badly. And I don't much fancy that happening again. One day I'll dip a toe. But right now it's fun working on this inner peace malarkey and spending time in the meadow on my tod. The flowers are lovely. It's like the Alpujarras.
Plus I don't know when I'd have time for this fictional boyfriend, anyway. Last night was our first uke band practice. My new bandmates seem extremely friendly and a talented lot, and it's hard to imagine that we will all want to bite out each others' jugulars in a few short weeks, although I know that's inevitable. We whittled our first songlist down to ten possibles - now I have a fortnight to learn how to play them. Terrified but excited: terrified about memorising songs, excited about getting dressed up in retro outfits and performing on stage. I'd love to do a lot more lying around but it just doesn't seem to be possible.
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