With each man that I date and truly like I have a hard time saying goodbye.  It is as though, for a moment, a window opens and I see the future we could have had together, if it had only been right.  And even though it isn’t right it feels like it could have been good enough.  And when we say goodbye I feel myself saying goodbye to that future as though I am being pulled backward through a long tunnel.  I feel disoriented; much like Scrooge must have felt with the ghost of Christmas future.

 

It is as much the fear of what will come next, without that imagined future, as the sorrow in the parting that keeps me clinging to the shifting walls.  Regardless of the reasons, they stretch beneath my grasping fingers and shake off my fingerprints.  And that entire future just disappears.  It will never exist.

 

The sadness of letting go settles over me every time.  I don’t want to keep looking at futures that will never form.  I want one of them to be real.  I get attached to them as though they are.

 

The sadness lasts until I find a moment when letting go makes sense; when I see the world for the vast space that it is, filled with endless possibilities.  I offer up my hurt and my hope and I wait for the world to make it right.  Sometimes it takes days, sometimes it takes years.  It depends on how much I believed in my invented future.

 

I like variety.  I crave adventure.  It is the feeling of moving forward that keeps me satisfied.  I know these things about myself.  They are true.  And they are only part of the story.

 

As the weight of these goodbyes has begun to register, I see that a part of me longs for stability.  I don’t like that my entire life is subject to the whims of the next week.  I want a career.  A home.  A family.  I assumed that if I built my career I would be happier than if I sat around waiting to find a good man.  But my career is nowhere to be found, and I am still hoping to chance upon a home and family.  It always felt pointless to chase after something that is never guaranteed.  Despite my efforts, however, it turns out a career isn’t, either.  And I think it is time for me to look for everything else.

 

I need to design my future life.