Friday, December 25, 2009

The Pushover

Over the last few weeks, as I've congratulated friend after friend on their engagement, I've pondered the idea of personal gain. What brings people to achieve their highest goals? What does it mean to "have it all" and who decides who actually has it?

I have a good friend who did not get a job as a student cantor this year. As a result of wanting to be sensitive and allow this friend to have a feeling of equality and importance, I let her take many of the opportunities I wanted for myself. I selflessly allowed her to be class representative on our student government (even when another classmate decided she too wanted the position and forced my friend to share her position) and then backed away from a shot at interning in our summer program in Israel this summer because she and her fiance wanted to go for it. I wanted both of those things, and because I wanted to do what I thought was the kindest thing to do for her, I backed off.

I was a total idiot.

This friend is engaged. She has the time to take extra classes and do yoga and see her family on the weekends when she doesn't work. She has everything that I am currently missing from my life, and instead of being happy with my decisions to give her said opportunities, I only feel resentment. Especially when I know she will have everything that I currently have (in addition to the aforementioned bonuses) when she applies for jobs for the coming year.

Instead of being a martyr, I was a pushover. For that, I feel like the ultimate idiot.

What is it that led me to make these decisions that put others before myself? Why did I allow feelings of guilt (when, in fact, I did nothing wrong in the first place) to let my friend have these things I desperately want?

What else am I allowing myself to push away, either for the sake of others or for the sake of other opportunities?

I've been feeling very stretched by work and school lately, in a way that doesn't allow me to make room for the other important things in my life. I spent 5 wonderful days with amazing friends in California, consistently checking my Blackberry as not to disconnect completely from my professional obligations. I took time and attention away from people who love me in order to answer silly emails about the Purim schpiel and the choir I'm trying to create for the temple. In the end, they noticed. And they weren't happy about it.

How much can I push my personal life away for my professional life?
How often can I allow guilt to push me to make even the tiniest decisions that affect my life in any capacity?

Is this part of the reason I haven't been able to find love, the one thing I'm aching for more than anything else right now? Or is it an excuse for the other reasons why I push love away?

I want to invite love in to my life, along with the right amounts of opportunity. I want to feel satisfied so I can push away feelings of guilt and resentment towards people I care about. I want to usher happiness into my soul and obtain the things I've always dreamed I'd someday find--the things that have nothing to do with becoming a cantor or losing weight.

I want to feel as though the work I do and the people I have in my life are equal in comparison to everyone else's so I can put the scale away once and for all.

Good goals for 2010.

***

I want to be able to talk to my friends again. I want to talk to them about how it hurts to be alone, surrounded by people in love. I want to talk to them about how I've realized so deeply that I don't want to be alone anymore. I want to admit that I miss the way things were before everyone I knew was coupled up, when I could talk about missing a certain someone and they would understand because they were there too.

I want to tell them that it feels strange complaining about my lack of love life when they are supposed to be relishing in the love they've committed their lives to. How isolating and wrong it feels to not want to talk to your friends for fear of lovey-dovey crap or conversations about wedding colors. How every time I hear an engagement story or see a shower invite my heart sinks a little more. How selfish I feel for feeling this way at all.

This loneliness is an odd place to be in right now. I'm no stranger to feeling alone, but I'm used to being on my own surrounded by other lonely people who know the drill. Now it feels like no one gets it anymore, and no one ever will again.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

The Biggest Loser

I recently came across this article about The Biggest Loser in the NY Times. As someone who hates the show for a myriad of reasons, I wanted to share it tonight as the world was introduced the the newest Biggest Loser.

Hey people, why don't you try losing weight the healthy way? I have no sympathy for your endless workouts and dehydration. If you want to make yourself sick to be thin, go ahead...but I won't cry for you and I won't watch as you do it.

What do you all think?

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Another engagement.

That makes 4 friends getting engaged within a 2 week period.

That's a lot of 'mazal tovs' and 'congratulations' and 'I'm so happy for you!'s That's a lot of engagement stories and squealing and ring showing and wedding talk.

And, for those of us who are single and wish we weren't, that's a lot of feeling sorry for ourselves.

I joke on my gchat status that friend's engagements are part happiness, part wanting to drink myself into a coma. As my friends have become engaged, I find that the happiness fades away and the desire to drink myself silly increases and increases. Not because I'm not thrilled that my friends have found the love most of us yearn for. Not even because I'm jealous and want everything they have to be for myself.

It's because every friend I've had who's ever gotten engaged, I've lost. I lose them to the "we only want to hang out with other couples" club. I lose them because a 3rd wheel is awkward for everyone, whether or not the status applies to them.

They tend to keep me around throughout the engagement process, where I am expected to squeal alongside every decision the bride makes. Once they're married, it's bye-bye boring single girl. They don't intend to drop me, and most of them make sincere claims that they never will, but regardless, it always happens.

They are another reminder of how alone I really am in this world when I ache not to be. They are the ones who tell me "someone wonderful is coming your way, I just know it" and expect me to go around thinking that just because they say it it will actually happen. In actuality, that statement only brings to light the fact that while it's happening for everyone else, it isn't happening for me. It also feels like their excuse for dropping me like a bad habit--like their blind faith makes up for the fact that once they're married, I'm outta the picture.

I know it's all me and it has nothing to do with them. I have absolutely no idea how to push my own issues aside and just be happy for them. I wish like hell that I could do that. I also wish I could be comfortable envisioning a world where it is just me, no husband or boyfriend. Right now the thought of being alone forever is too scary to face.

Please don't respond to this post with "you'll find him eventually" or "I'll always be here, even when I get married." Those really aren't the kinds of things I want to be hearing right now. If you want to tell me "I'll meet you at the bar, shots of tequila in hand," I'll be your friend for life.