Loss

 Tonight's topic was going to be loss.  2020-2022 held for me quite a bit of loss.  I was going to write about it, but I came across this and I think it sums it up pretty well...  Do well to remember though that loss can also be a new beginning.

36

Navigating life into your mid and eventually, ugh, late 30's is much different than your mid/late 20's.  Artificial time limits that we impose on ourselves for many of life's milestones seem increasingly close and their goals seem increasingly distant as the years tick forward.  It is important however to remember that these milestones are not actually set in stone.  They take work.  Sometimes a lot of work.  And they don't have an actual timeline.

In my 20's I believed by 36 I would be married to a good man.  Have a family.  A career.  A home.  And that things would be, in all, pretty decent.  All the hard work of my early 20's would pay off and all of these milestones would be reached.  But of course, we're all a little naive about these things.  We have emotional responses to them which sometimes cloud logic.

Three years back, I was in a relationship.  I had a good paying job.  And, as should come as a surprise to no one, I was miserable.  I worked too hard on career at the expense of my personal life.  I was in a relationship, well-intentioned as we both were, that wasn't the right fit.  My personal life and personal goals suffered.  My happiness suffered.  It might sound a little bit strange but COVID lockdown ended up being a blessing in disguise for me.  

I broke up with my ex boyfriend in December 2019, and COVID began appearing in January 2020.  Lockdown started April 14th and lasted into July.  For a time I felt that I had failed at the relationship.  Logically of course I know that all of the problems we had were not completely my fault, that in life they're often shared or else unrelated to either one person but related to circumstances out of either of your control.  Lockdown gave me an excuse to close everyone off for a time.  It gave me time to heal.  It gave me time to feel better about myself and to come to terms with the loss.  Every failed relationship, romantic or platonic, is at some level similar to a death in your life, as it is a death of your way of life to varying degrees.  You need to take time to mourn that death.  Then afterward, you need to figure out why it died, if you want to learn from it--and I did want that.

2021 saw the end of a career for me.  And at the same time, and maybe even to a greater level of closeness to my heart than many of my personal relationships, I had to mourn that loss.  6 1/2 years at the old job and 15 total in the food service industry, both longer than any romantic relationship I'd ever been in.  My ultimate goal was always to get out mind you.  And I finally had enough and did.  I am proud of that.  My career was destroying my personal relationships and happiness, particularly in the last year.  The quality of my peers had profoundly dropped.  Sacrifices were being made in the quality of those around me out of the lack of people available.  I watched those with decades of experience leave the business in general.   I was working more hours and harder to keep everything together.  Yet like cupping water to your chest in the shower, it eventually escapes.  I was the last rat off the sinking ship.  I could rant and rave about the reasons why I left, but that's last year, and those issues are processed and put away.

This year has been a different kind of challenge.  The biggest was health.  In April my physical health took a bad turn.  I was exhausted all of the time.  I had a fever for the better part of a six weeks.  It was an intestinal abscess for what it's worth.  I ended up having it removed.  It was an ordeal of patience as much as of me being a patient.  Sitting in bed and waiting made up most of my days for almost a week and a half after being admitted to the hospital.  It was mind numbing, almost torturous for someone with a very very active mind.  It was a point that I had to relinquish control of my autonomy to others.  Doctors and nurses and then family until I healed enough to take care of myself.  For more than a month, for the first time in more than a decade I had to depend on others for my wellbeing.  Of course, there's a difference between willing accepting the help of others and needing to accept the help of others.  I am a prideful person and an independent person.  This was profoundly difficult.

Yet, time moved forward and I healed permanently.  Moving into the summer I returned to work, at a new position that was as completely out of the day to day physical service of food as I could be, for which again I'm grateful.  As the years piled up and the mileage piled on, doing that type of job at the level of intensity that my ego and pride required of me, was becoming increasingly taxing.  I wasn't 20 anymore.  I do miss the intensity sometimes of pushing out a lunch service when the kitchen opener calls out.  But, I've come to a point where I'm more grateful not to add that wear and tear on my body anymore.  I'm in better shape for having started eating better (though not perfectly, I admit).  I feel better in my own head than I was when work imbalanced my life and added detrimental levels of stress to it.  

One of the best parts of the last year is that in my new role I got to interact with a lot of new people.  And many of them were very decent and I couldn't be more grateful for that.  I am very grateful for them in my life.  Yet that comes with challenges as well.  This year I've come to realize that I've spent the last few years focusing on myself, which was needed, but at the expense of my personal, platonic, relationships as well.  Between my previous imperfect romantic relationship, taking a big career move, and taking time for myself to figure everything out, on top of a major health issue, I stopped caring about my friendships.  Regrettably I've pretty much lost them all, or at the most relegated them to acquaintance status, where you say hi every six months, plan to get together and then never do.

That's where I stand going into 2023 and into my 36th year.  It's time for me to rebuild my life outside of work.  Something I haven't worked on, honestly since college.  I have a small family, and while many of them are decent, there is a physical distance issue even there that makes greater closeness difficult.  Yet, more so it's the personal time activities, hobbies, and friendships that I need to work on this year.  Now that I actually have time to balance my career and my personal life, I actually have to do that.  Of course, there's no easy path to that either.  Making new friends in your 30's, expanding your social circle, is difficult.  Many, if not most my age are focused inward on family now.  Their own families.  That I don't have.  So it becomes difficult, though not impossible.  

Ultimately I still want to find love, to find a husband, to have a family, a home, and so on.  That hasn't changed in the last 15 years.  But, perhaps the path to those things now should.  In my 36th year and in this new year I'm not going to look for love at first.  In the new year, in my next year,  I look to surround myself with decent people and balance my work life with personally inspiring activities.  The difference between your 20's, in college, and in your 30's is availability of good people.  In college there are thousands of people just like you, equally immersed in collegiate life.  It's easy to meet people.  In your 30's I have learned that the best way to meet people, platonic or romantic, is to do so through osmosis.  Surround yourself by activities you enjoy, hobbies, etc.  In doing so, you surround yourself with people with common interests--platonic relationships arise from common interests and experiences.  And from those platonic relationships maybe I can also find love--either directly or perhaps in meeting someone who knows someone, etc.

So in your new year, surround yourself with people who matter to you.  Or if you, like me, have lost their way on that endeavor over the years, immerse yourself in your interests and through that meet new people and grow your social circle again, filling it with people who are beneficial to you.  I always say that I hate people, that I can't stand most people.  I don't like guys that are loud, dumb, obnoxious, misogynistic or homophobic (obviously).  I don't like girls that are air-headed or  manipulative.  I like people who are icebergs.  The bit you see at first is only a small portion of the person they are underneath.  I like people with content, who are thoughtful, hardworking and kind.  And most of all, I hate drama.  So in my activities and hobbies in the new year I will incorporate those positive platonic relationships in my life and from there look to a romantic relationship again.  Maybe that'll be next year, maybe the year after, or whenever.  

I recognize that I need to build my life properly to attract good friends and also to attract a good guy.  There is no timeline that I should feel pressure to adhere to, though that can be hard sometimes.  36 and 2023 are going to be a good year.  And I hope the same for anyone who reads this.  While I'm terrible at taking my own advice, I am very good at giving it.  So I will do so.  If you find yourself in the same position I've been in these last few years, work on the foundation first.  Work on you.  Work on your interests.  From there work on your friends.  The circle of support you have around you.  And finally work toward love.  As much as some say that it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a supportive circle around you to find and maintain love.  It is hard work.  And we'd all be best to work together to find it, use our experiences and lessons learned to help each other along the way.  So to anyone reading this and to me when I go back and look at it, good luck and I believe in you.