1.29.2011

heartsick.


I have no crushes right now. Not one. Only regrets over past relationships and interactions that I wish would've waxed into relationships. I've married myself to design and the podcasts and music that keep me company while work in isolation. And I've been doing a lot better work.

Because I realized something weird about myself. I MUST work in a fairly isolated situation to get anything accomplished. Sure, I can execute orders or plans in company, but my brain work must be done alone. It's funny that I realized so late. I think my insistance to work among friends stifled some progress that could've been realized while I've been in the BFA program.

Socializing is so enjoyable to me that it causes a sort of automatic ADD. There is nothing I enjoy in life more than an engaging conversation and it always feels like a worthy distraction.

But as I've spent so much more time alone than usual, the less frequent engaging conversations I share with my closest friends all echo a taste of the same sadness. Everyone wants to get married; all of us are lonely. Maybe it's just because we're getting a little older. So we're trying everything. We're all growing our hair, doing our makeup faithfully, losing weight, and reading dating books.

I'm telling you, it's breaking my heart. They are all the kind of people where it makes you sick to ever imagine that they might feel desperate because they really never should. And these aren't the kind of girls who sit around waiting. They are educated (with graduate degrees for the most part) and they're doing work they enjoy. But careers are a poor substitute for love; the big, deep-down kind you imagine where every part of you is safe with somebody else. Success holds such a cold uncertainty.

It is one of my deepest prayers and hopes that this sadness meets its solutions soon.

4 comments:

mustdestroyalltraces said...

deep stuff, sister. certainly a lot to think about, but i think you've summed it up better than any insight i could offer.

this is one of those posts i'll read a few times over the next few days.

Cambrienelson said...

Well said dear friend.

I'd just like to add that it is a wonderful thing that those who are single at least have the desire to be married and be following the Lord plan. So many these days don't.
As with any trial, only those who go through it themselves can truely understand. I'm sure I have no idea what it is like. My heart go out to you and all of them.

Unknown said...

I'm totally with you! I just told a friend last night..."i'm currently dating my most faithful companion, Homework".

Hope what you said happens, for us both. In the right timing. I know you deserve it.

remarkable said...

You don't know me... I'm a friend of a friend. She directed me to your blog to read the letter from the stake conference guy (eee!). I just had to comment that I feel like I am reading my thoughts from 3 years ago on your blog. I was single and working in Utah, resolutely developing myself through work and music and writing and enjoying friends... but pining for a husband. There's something about the culture out there in Utah that made it so hard to be single. It was also interesting being a "liberal" (i.e., moderate) in Utah, even comical at times when well-intentioned people tried to cure me of my political philosophy as you experienced. I think people mostly thought I was eccentric.

Anyway. Now I'm living on the east coast closer to family, and I find myself cured of my pining. It would be nice to be married, but I am really pretty content, which I can't say that I was in Utah. And now people think I'm eccentric because I'm Mormon, but I'm OK with that. I don't know who decided it was a contradiction to be Mormon and not conservative, but I reject that logic and likewise embrace NPR AND the Book of Mormon.

Maybe getting out of Provo is not the answer for you that it was for me, but then again, it might be :) Good luck to you!