I sit on the couch looking straight ahead.

Not really looking but just staring into space.

That void is there again…that weird dull familiar ache.

It is the feeling of another failed attempt at a relationship.

I am forty this year. I don’t feel it.

My body shows the signs, but my mind is stuck in repeat.

Year after year I get older but feel like the wheels are spinning in place.

I am wiser, and there have been lessons learned.

What do those lessons get me? Let me tell you…

Lessons, though helpful, don’t make life easier. They actually make you overthink everything. What I do in my head is a tug-of-war between “you know what this is” and “yes, but this time could be different.” We justify our repeated responses because we still believe in love. At forty we understand our tendencies and we recognize when we are in that cycle that hasn’t worked for us up to this point. But we think we can circumvent the inevitable because this time we will take our time or we will draw a line down the sand…but what we end up doing is moving that line back and back and back…because this time it has to work. Why?

If it doesn’t work, we have to go back to ground zero…and that requires too much work and causes too much pain. Ground zero for me is that pit of loneliness where I have to rebuild that armor so that I can go back to not caring and being okay alone again. I do well alone…it is predictable, comfortable. There is no roller coaster, no up and down. Being alone is my one constant that I can depend on. I like that constancy. That is precisely why I don’t date. But, inevitably, someone comes along and there’s a connection and then a spark and then all of a sudden I am in a firestorm of emotions. Well, they aren’t always firestorms. Sometimes it’s a small flicker of a candle…but the flame of that candle represents the hope of something meaningful. Hope is the real killer. Ground zero is the place where I get rid of that hope so that I can go back to normal…my constant. What scares me is that each time I go back to ground zero, it takes a little less effort to get there. Maybe hope is running out.

This time needs to be different. This time I need to rise up as a phoenix out of ash rather than putting on the armor. I need to be brave enough to exist without the armor. If I continue putting that armor around myself, I will continue to play defense. By defense, I mean that I will continue to let the men call the shots. What that does is attract men who are only looking to take advantage of what I have to offer rather than me proactively seeking out the man that I am supposed to be with…someone I actually could be with. Seeking out instead of letting it come to me, that takes much more work…and it destroys the illusion I have built up that I am okay on my own. Am I okay on my own?

The answer to that is yes, of course. But who wants to be just okay? I have these pathologies, natural states of reaction that I learned somewhere growing up (we all have them), that cycle through my being, preventing growth. I have always thought that “fake it ‘til you make it” was an adequate philosophy. As long as I keep telling myself that I am fine, strong, independent, perfectly happy on my own, then eventually it will manifest into being. I remember visiting a psychic once in Sedona, Arizona who told me I was a great manifester…that I could make things happen. I think that’s true, but not in the way I understood it then.

We all manifest what we actually feel inside. If we aren’t solid inside, everything on the outside will be shaky. I have a strong foundation with some parts of myself. But with love, I have a lot of work to do. Everybody has baggage, but my baggage has been dragged behind me for a long time. I thought I had worked through a lot of it and let it go. Turns out, all I really did was put wheels on it so it would slide easier. I made it work for me instead of letting it go. But I am still dragging it. Eventually, I will have to release it, burn it to ash, and rise above like that phoenix. I am a proactive healer. I am someone who works HARD to understand my shit and learn from my mistakes and my pain. Because I know this about myself, it is extra frustrating to come to terms with the fact that my shit hasn’t really gone anywhere. It’s all rolled up in that suitcase with shiny new wheels.

I do laugh at myself. I laugh at myself because I get it. I get it so much that all I can do is shrug my shoulders and wonder what my next move is. I could make the choice to burn that baggage to ash, but that would require changing my story and writing a new one. THAT is the part I haven’t figured out yet. How do I change my story instead of making the old one fit into my future? I don’t know. I am still working on that.

I still believe in love. I know a few couples who have found the real thing. They keep that flicker of hope alive in me. It isn’t dead yet.

What I am beginning to acknowledge is that, although I am okay alone, I don’t want to actually be alone, and that doesn’t make me weak. It makes me human.