I feel like I’ve spent my life figuring things out, how to do certain things, to be successful at each individual thing. That’s the way life is supposed to work right? First you master eating solid foods, walking, talking, reading, friends, higher learning, career, love and family… then you start to work on some of the harder stuff. The all important “why am I here?” as in, this planet, not this house, although that does come into play along the way.
But the thing is this, I’ve never gotten there. I’ve never made it past career. Maybe things don’t always go in that exact order, but that’s the thing, this is where I’ve gotten stuck. Somehow, I skipped it and started working on the whole “why am I here?” question. Probably because I didn’t want to face the one I skipped. And then, I keep looking back, feeling like the one reason I am here is for love, and yet it’s the one thing that completely eludes me, the thing that slips through my fingers and at times stomps on my heart and laughs as it walks off hand in hand with one of my friends.
Every man I meet now is so wrong for me, I just know it, instantly, most of the time before they open their mouths. I feel nothing for them but simple friendship, or in many cases revulsion (lets face it, when you get older, what’s left are the “my mommy didn’t love me enough” issues that I’m not down with). Yet I want to feel more for someone, like I did when I was younger, like I still do when I think about the one I lost. Not as in I feel that way now, but I remember how it was. I think sometimes it’s karmic payback for hurting someone so deeply. To spend my whole life wanting what I can’t have.
I look around, at my friends and families relationships, and I see such little real love. I see cheaters, liars, drug abuse, convenience, obligation and secrets, so many secrets. Then I go to work, and hear secrets of my patients. The mistress in the waiting room while the wife asks me how he got to the hospital. The wife who asks “who called 911 if he was unconscious?” and I have to tell her to talk to the police because I can’t face telling her the person who called 911 was a hooker who ran out the back door. She devoted her whole life to a lie and as soon as she turned her back, look what he did! I obviously can’t tell whole stories here, it’s against the law, but these are things I see at work every day. I don’t see the devoted husband who had a heart attack making love to his wife of 40 years. And so I ask myself, is it possible? If these people can’t find it, and neither can I, is it possible at all? Can anyone? Who am I, how am I so special that if so few other people can find that one in a million spark of real love with someone, that I should?
So I ask myself again, why am I here? What is my purpose? I know many will say I should pray about it, ask god. I don’t think I believe in god, I’m truly agnostic in the sense that I see no evidence of god, I never have. I use to pray when I was younger, because I thought it was what you were supposed to do, that and most kids live on that magical thinking, but not once were my prayers answered. Nothing ever changed in my life that I didn’t change myself.
I tell one of my good friends to find happiness within her self. I’m such a hypocrite. I don’t think I’ve really felt happy in a long time. Yes, I think I have peace to a degree, I’m comfortable in my routine, there is zero drama in my life. But there is no joy. So where I stand now is, I’ve met all my life goals; own house (check), new car (check), education (check, check, check), dream job (check), except… love of my life ( )…yes, that’s an empty check box. What makes it worse I think, is that I know looking for it, trying to make it work with someone else doing the same thing, never works, I’ve been there. But I’m also so use to working towards a goal I know how to meet. All of my check boxes are tangible things with steps to reach each goal. There is no step to finding true love, it either happens or it doesn’t. So here I sit, waiting and wondering, what’s left for my life?