What Love's Got To Do With It

Another best friend bit the dust. She got engaged at 24. She's never been happier.

And yes, I am a faithful friend and outrageously happy for her, of course! But her excitement was an unintentional dagger to my love life's esteem. 4 of my closest friends got engaged this year... my brother - who I NEVER thought would fall in love - got married... and I officially don't have any single friends left in Michigan. (Not an exaggeration.)

But before I get to the woe is me bit, let me remind my audience that I'm not a head case, not always, nor am I desperate or destitute or really that jealous of a young-20-something marriage. My eyes and ears have cracked open into a pretty nice reality since my death defying quest in Yosemite (see post below), and I'm aware of what I've got. Woe is certainly not me.

So, I'm single and I work too hard and I barely make enough money to sustain independence in San Francisco... three points on the frowny-face side of life. But but but but but! My infinite freedoms outweighs these bits. For example: since I don't have a hubby or needy boyfriend to get back home to at the end of the day, I can take leisurely drives home across the bay; my mind wanders to great places; I see fantastic sunsets; I connect with old friends. Today it was grossly foggy, but in my un-eager and wanderlust state, I felt like I was more driving into the center of a blurred Magic-Eye Puzzle than a dark and depressed city. While I've never seen the hidden-image of a Magic-Eye Puzzle, feeling like I was "in it" seemed even better. And even though my home is sometimes gray and blurred and down in the dumps and often anxious and often so irritatingly liberal that I want to regurgitate air and expensive and full of cute couples and mind-blowingly attractive men who don't prefer my gender... despite that, I'm in love with my town and my situation.

My brother doesn't want to get married because the chances of him getting divorced are just as great as him staying in love. I got mad when he explained this. How can someone make a decision on love based on the possibility of no-longer-in-love? What about the other side of things? What about the crazy, uninhibited love that you can't even imagine until it's booming all around you? Is it ok to give up on that possibility?

Girls, like those I took to Yosemite, prostitute themselves because their pimps promise love; and even though pimps manipulate and demoralize and break down young girls, they DO provide a sense of security that those vulnerable girls need. That's why they drink the kool-aid. It seems the only way to fix their altered understanding of love is to provide an overwhelmingly different and positive and better version of love. The idealized pimp love cannot be removed, it needs to be replaced and one-uped. Prostituting is ALL about love. It's something to think about.

So I'm the last of my friends to maintain single status; so I've never been super-duper, let's get married in love with someone; love has never been promised to me; so I make ends meat but nothing too tender. So it seems, from a fragmented point of view and a bit of unspoken backstory, that I was dealt the cold and heartless hand of cards. Maybe that's true.

BUT! Thanks to my beliefs in transcendentalism, and the time to practice it, I know things could be much worse for me - I don't see love in terms of loss, I don't need to sell myself off for a false sense of love, and I can feel a whole lot of love for the things that others might call nothing. I have long car rides, and interesting challenges to conquer, and romance budding all around me. I have freedom and independence and opportunity. I have potential for unstoppable passion. And in everything, in every nothing kind of thing, there is infinite love.

I've been wanting to open up more and FEEL something, and GIVE and GAIN some kind of tenderness. Maybe now's not my time to get married like the rest of my pals, but there's something to be said for the fierce freedom I'm wrapped up in. I'm growing and changing and bettering myself and my surroundings because of it. And it's got everything to do with love.