One Too Many Rejections

Do you know that GIF of Emma Stone crying into her ice cream? Well that was me last night…and this morning…and five minutes ago.

You see, I’ve actually been doing pretty well this year given the sucky hand I’ve been dealt lately. Between having to do four consecutive egg freezing cycles to have any chance of having a biological child in the future, finding out my contract at work isn’t going to be renewed because of Covid-related losses, and having to navigate the depressing world of online dating at 30 years old when I would really rather be married and starting a family, things haven’t been a walk in the park. But despite all that, I woke up happy most days. I counted my blessings, approached life with confidence and hope and excitement.

But that doesn’t mean I still don’t encounter rough patches. And boy are they rough.

I’ve always liked the idea of being someone who bounces back from rejection quickly, who barely even let those sort of minor disappointments affect her. When I interviewed at three companies in one week and got rejected from all of them, I just said, “Oh well, none of those were the right fit for me anyway. I know I’ll find a better match.”

When not one, not two, but FIVE different guys I’d been having great conversations with on dating apps, who had reached out me and expressed interest, who I’d had great chemistry with, who asked me out on dates, all unmatched me suddenly in the days before we were meant to meet, I was bummed but I moved on pretty quickly to the next guy.

And guess what? That next guy turned out to be great and we spent two weeks texting and talking on the phone and for the first time in months I actually got excited about going on a date. I knew it wasn’t wise, but I let myself get too invested before even meeting someone. We both talked about what our ideal day in a relationship might look like, and our visions matched up pretty closely. I started to imagine sharing a cup of coffee or tea with him before work, exploring the city together, cooking dinner with each other every night. We had great chemistry over the phone and it seemed like we were both looking for the exact same things. He was so easy to talk to and we ended up chatting about pretty much everything. I even mentioned to him how I wasn’t a fan of this recent trend of people unmatching or ghosting before a date, and I’d rather someone just tell me if they’re not interested.

We were supposed to go on our first date tomorrow at a cool new exhibit in the city that I’ve been wanting to go to for months (so I was excited for two reasons). Well I’m sure you can guess how this story ends. He ghosted, and I didn’t take it great.

I know I shouldn’t have gotten so invested in someone I didn’t even know. I mean maybe in person we wouldn’t have had that spark, maybe we had some fundamental difference that would have spelled doom for things down the road, maybe, maybe maybe.

That’s the thing that sucks most. I’ll never know what could have been, because I didn’t even get a chance to explore things with him.

Actually that’s not what sucks most. What sucks most is that someone would take the time to put in all that work, would actually bother asking you out on a date, and then remind you that your feelings are actually meaningless to them when they decide to take an easy out and move on with their lives while you’re left wondering what you might have done wrong.

Well I guess all that rejection eventually got to me, because today I finally cried all the tears that I refused to spill these last months.

I vented to a best friend, and while it felt good to get stuff off my chest and I appreciated her listening, I knew she wasn’t going to say anything that made me feel better. I mean she met her fiancé in college. She’s getting married this year at 26. I don’t expect her to get what it feels like to be in my position. She said the same things I’d probably say to a friend going through the same thing, like how you have to love yourself before someone else can love you which I agree with but there are also plenty of people out there who don’t love themselves who still find people to love them.

Sometimes I feel like dating these days is a minefield. I’ve gotten unmatched just for saying something as innocuous as, “How’s your day going?” Clearly there was obviously something else going on with that person—maybe they just got out of a relationship and realized they weren’t ready for dating, maybe they started talked to someone else they were more interested in, maybe they got kidnapped by Bane—but where do I go to meet the people who I can just have a normal conversation with, meet up with for a cup of coffee, and see again if it goes well? Why can’t dating just be that simple?

If I’m being honest, it’s hard when things like this happen. Once or twice I can handle it, but when it happens again and again, my confidence does take a knock. I start to question whether I’m worthy of being loved, whether there’s something profoundly wrong with me, whether I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life.

I don’t want to dwell in these feelings longer than I have to. I’m still bummed but I’m not going to stay in bed all day and cry into my ice cream (even though I’m very tempted by the idea). I’m going to make my bed, make myself some coffee, and focus on what I can do from here to get closer to the place I want to be in my life.

Even though it’ll be hard and my heart doesn’t feel in it right now, I’m going to sit down and apply to more jobs, I’m going to spend a few hours revising my novel, I’m going to keep swiping on my dating apps so I can meet my new Next Guy and hopefully one of those Next Guys will turn out to be The Guy.

I have to admit, writing all my feelings out in this post did help me feel better. Well, I’ve stopped crying anyway so that’s a start. Here’s hoping for better days ahead!

April Reflections

Is it just me or is this year flying by?

I know I say this in pretty much every reflection post, but boy did a lot happen this month! For starters, I got vaccinated! In fact, all my friends and family got fully vaccinated in April which was super exciting. I felt like I could breathe a huge sigh of relief once my parents got their shots. I’ll be going to visit my family next weekend, and it’s the first time we’ll be able to gather without the stress of catching Covid lingering over us.

After I got the first shot, I only had some arm pain the next day, but after my second shot I had some body aches and a headache which wasn’t very fun because two days later…

I had to move! So that was my other big thing of the month. I spent yesterday moving into my brand new apartment with…wait for it…actual counter space! I wanted to cry happy tears when I unpacked all my kitchen stuff and I had space to store everything on the counters. No more taking apart my blender every time I’m done using it and stowing it away on a night stand that I’ve been using as an impromptu counter! Can you tell I’m excited? It’s especially great, because I’ve gotten more into cooking this year. I can’t wait to start whipping up new recipes in my beautiful new kitchen.

This month, I also finished my first complete egg freezing cycle. I won’t go into too much detail about it in this post, because I went into quite a lot of detail in my last post. You can read more about that here.

And my final big update for the month is that I spent a few weeks putting the final touches on my novel rewrite and sent it off to my AMM mentor for her feedback! She said she expects to send her edit letter (which is basically just a document containing all her critiques) the first week of May, so I expect I’ll be receiving that any day now. I have to be honest, even though all I wanted while I was working on my rewrite was to be done writing so I could take a long break, all I want to do now is start writing again. I definitely need a few days off every now and then, but more than that and I just find myself itching to make some sort of progress. I’m excited to see what my mentor’s got to say about my my rewrite since I changed about 80% of it since she last read it. There’s a part of me that’s worried she’s going to absolutely hate it, but my writing group has read almost half of my rewrite so far and they’ve been pretty enthusiastic about the changes I’ve made so far so I’m choosing to be optimistic.

And that was April! It was definitely a lot, and at times I wasn’t even sure how I was going to be able to handle everything, but luckily I did and now a new month is here.

So what do I have in store for May, you might be wondering?

Well, I’d planned on making the leap back into dating last month, but one week into April and I realized I was way too busy. I have a lot less big things happening now, so I can finally focus on making some time for romance. I’m definitely looking forward to that, especially now that the weather is so lovely and the flowers are blooming in the city.

I also may do another egg freezing cycle, but if I don’t, I’d like to focus on my health again. You’re not really supposed to exercise while you’re freezing your eggs, so it feels like it’s been forever since I worked out. I can’t wait to get moving again and cook up some healthy meals in my new kitchen.

I’ll also be getting more serious about my job search. I did apply to a few jobs in April, but now that I have a lot more free time, I’m going to make that a priority this month. I still have 2 1/2 months until my contract at my current job ends, so I do have some time, but I’d feel better if I secured something sooner than later.

And finally, I’d like to try and wrap up the edits on my novel. That’ll of course depend on how extensive my mentor’s feedback is. If it’s minor stuff, I can probably make all the changes in the next month or two. If it involves major changes, it’ll obviously take a lot longer. I’ll have a better idea after reading her edit letter, but either way, I’m determined to finish my novel before the end of the summer and start looking for an agent!

Well I should probably get to unpacking those boxes I stuffed in my closet yesterday (shh don’t tell). I hope everyone had a wonderful month!

Oh Baby

I’ve spoken openly about my fertility issues on this blog before and how I made the decision to freeze my eggs this year at 29. I always planned on writing a post about my experience, and even though I had my first consultation with my clinic back in September of 2020, I didn’t actually do a completely cycle until this month. Now that I’ve gone through the whole process from start to finish, I’m ready to share my experience with egg freezing.

I first asked my OBGYN to run some tests last year after stopping in for a routine checkup. My sister, who’s nine years older than me, started trying for children in her early 30s and had some issues, so I decided to get checked too just in case. That turned out to be a really good decision, because I learned I had a condition called Diminished Ovarian Reserve or DOR, which means I have a lot less eggs than other women my age.

After my consultation with the fertility clinic, we decided to wait a few months while I went off birth control to see if it was suppressing my fertility in any way. When I got tested three months later, my levels were in a better place but still quite low for my age category.

I did my first egg freezing cycle in February of this year. The process involved stopping into my clinic’s office about every other day, first thing in the morning, to get my bloodwork done and to do a transvaginal ultrasound. I will admit, I was very intimidated by the wand they used in the ultrasounds but it’s only uncomfortable for a few seconds and it wasn’t painful at all. While they do these ultrasounds, you’ll be able to watch on the screen as they count how many follicles you have. Each mature follicle can contain one egg, and I believe that a woman of my age without any fertility issues can expect to have somewhere around 20 follicles. The number of follicles resets every month when you get your period. In December when I went in for a checkup, I had 12. Another month, I had five.

After your checkup, you’ll get a phone from a nurse a few hours later telling you which medications to give yourself each night until your checkup. These medications come in the form of injections that you’ll be administering yourself. I was super intimidated in the beginning, but I’ve given myself so many shots at this point that I barely even hesitate before sticking a needle into my belly anymore. The needles are small enough that it’s not very painful, but they are still shots so they’re not exactly pleasant. Because of my DOR diagnosis, I had to give myself a much higher quantity of medication. Each day, I did about 4-5 injections. The first cycle I was told to do them all at night, but the second cycle I did two in the morning and two at night. There will be some prep involved for some of the medication. You might have to mix some powders and draw out medicine with a syringe, but you’ll get the hang of it. Most clinics have you do a class where you learn how to do the injections, but due to Covid I just watched some instructional videos. Eventually it’ll get to a point that it just becomes part of your routine and something to check off your list for the day.

At each checkup appointment, your doctor will monitor the growth of your follicles. Once the biggest follicles get to about 18mm, you’ll probably be ready for retrieval. That night, you’ll take a final trigger shot at an exact time the doctor gives you and then your egg retrieval will be scheduled for exactly 36 hours later.

I was definitely nervous about my retrieval, but now that I’m on the other side I have a confession: I kind of…enjoyed it. I mean, you show up in the morning, they give you some anesthesia to make you sleepy and then you wake up and it’s over! Then you get to spend the rest of the day lying in bed, watching TV and having a sick day. My sister and brother-in-law came to look after me, but I honestly would have been fine on my own. I didn’t have much pain and I didn’t even take any pain meds. That’s one upside of having less follicles. If you have closer to 20 follicles, you can probably expect more cramping and bloating, similar to bad period cramps.

When I did my cycle in February, I never made it to the retrieval because I wasn’t having a good enough response to the meds and my follicles weren’t growing as needed. My numbers this month were better compared to my last cycle.

When I triggered this time, I had six follicles. The sizes were 18, 18, 18, 11, 11, and 8. Realistically, I knew that the smaller follicles likely wouldn’t yield anything. I was right, and I learned the doctors had retrieved three eggs. Not every egg will mature and make it to the freezing stage, but I was lucky that all three of my eggs did!

Obviously it’s a pretty small number of eggs for someone my age, but since I’m only 29 the quality of the eggs will be good which still makes them pretty valuable. My doctor reassured me before the procedure by telling me that usually when people use egg donors, they get healthy eggs from people my age and usually receive them in batches of 6-8 eggs which gives them a good chance of having at least one child. Many women will only have to do one egg freezing cycle, but I’ll probably do at least one more to give myself better odds.

If you’re thinking about freezing your eggs, there’s still one big consideration: the cost. Egg freezing was NOT cheap, and that was still true even after I chose a clinic that charges considerably less than the average and I qualified for discounts on medicines due to my DOR diagnosis. If you’re paying completely out of pocket in the US, you can probably expect to pay around $7-10k.

Overall, egg freezing turned out to be a less intimidating process than I expected. At times it was hard to go through it all alone (well not entirely alone because I had the support of my amazing friends and family) without a spouse or a partner, but I just thought about how much of a badass I was for giving myself four shots a day and barely flinching and being independent and brave enough to make a proactive choice for my future.

Speaking of the future, I still don’t know what mine holds. Maybe I’ll have a baby naturally, maybe I’ll decide to go a different route like use an egg donor or adopting. Maybe I’ll decide not to have children at all. Regardless, I feel like I can breathe a little easier knowing I have some kind of insurance in the bank, so to speak. I’ve always known that I wanted to be a mother one day, so I’m confident this was the right choice for me. Finding out I had fertility issues was rough, but I was incredibly lucky that I was diagnosed while I was young enough that I still had some options available to me.

20 Lessons I Learned in 2020

How does one possibly sum up the year that was 2020? I can honestly say this was the most difficult, emotional, chaotic year ever, and it was also the year I learned some of the most important lessons of my life. So without further ado…

On Life:

Your life isn’t going to begin when you accomplish x or obtain y. Life started the day you were born, and it’s happening right now! It’s also never going to look exactly how you imagined. Don’t let the arbitrary deadlines we as a society set for ourselves freak you out. Being a single woman in your 30s doesn’t mean you’re an old maid. You still have so much life ahead of you, so go out and dance and kiss strangers in the rain and spend all your money on avocado toast and all that other stuff that’s supposedly reserved for younger folks.

Fail early and often. Don’t let a fear of failure stop you from trying at all, because it’s through failing that we get to a better place. As an aspiring writer, I know better than anyone how easy it is to procrastinate. I put off writing a first draft because I worry it will be terrible, but so what? It’s going to be terrible whether I write it today or one year from now. If I write it today, I’ll have an extra year to polish it and work on my craft and turn that terrible first draft into something amazing.

Don’t let other people dictate your life. Friends and family can offer helpful advice, but at the end of the day it’s about doing what’s right for you, not them. You’re the one who’s going to have to live with the decisions you make, so make sure they’re the right ones for you.

Letting go of where you are now is scary, but it’s the only way to get to a better place. Leaving a job I didn’t enjoy was the only way I could get hired at a company I love. Leaving behind a bad dating situation is the only way to make space in my life for a much healthier, loving relationship.

Life is so much more fun when you let go of expectations. That doesn’t mean not having standards for yourself or other people. That simply means going into situations without having preconceived notions of what it’s supposed to look like. Let life surprise you. Being pleasantly surprised is a lot more enjoyable than being constantly disappointed.

On Dating:

Judge someone by what they do and not what they say. I spent plenty of time with sweet-talkers, who’d call me baby and hon, tell me I was beautiful, tell me how much they missed me, and then one day, dump me like a bag of hot potatoes. If someone isn’t putting in real effort—that means asking you out on dates, making time for you in their schedule, going out of their way to show you they care—they’re not worth your time.

It’s not going to work out with most of the people you date, and that’s okay. The odds are that the majority of first dates you go on aren’t going to lead to relationships, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourself. Pick an activity you’ve always wanted to do, eat out at a restaurant you’ve been dying to try, have fun getting dolled up, practice your flirting skills, enjoy learning about someone else’s life, and if all else fails, think of the great story it’ll make one day.

If someone really likes you, you won’t ever wonder if they do. And here’s a bonus lesson: listen to your gut. Deep down, we often know the truth, but we’ll go through a bunch of mental gymnastics to convince ourselves otherwise. You can ignore it for as long as you like, but sooner or later reality’s going to catch up to you, and the longer you wait, the harder it’s going to hit you.

Have your own life. You shouldn’t be sitting around hoping your crush will ask to see you. For starters, this just sets you up for disappointment if they don’t. It also just makes you not a very interesting person. Think about it this way: would you want to date the person who spent the last week watching Netflix and waiting for you to call or the person who went to the museum, learned how to cook duck à l’orange, dominated their friends at board game night, and took a trapeze class?

Have standards, and communicate them often. A relationship only works if both people are getting what they need out of it. When you really like someone, all you want to do is make them happy, and that makes you willing to sacrifice your standards. Don’t. Ever. Do. This. I can’t emphasize enough how important this is. Sure, it might scare off some guys, but you don’t want those kind of guys in your life in the first place. The ones who stick around will be the ones who respect you and will connect with you on a much deeper level. Believe it or not, having standards actually makes you more desirable, so if you don’t have some, get some!

On Happiness:

Have a life philosophy. That means knowing how you’re going to deal with setbacks, what’s going to make you happy, and how you’re going to live your life. Since I learned about Stoicism this year, it’s become my go-to philosophy, and I no longer feel like I’m just wandering aimlessly through my life.

Some of the most powerful tools for happiness are 100% free. Since I started regularly meditating and journaling this year, my stress levels have dropped considerably. I’ve gotten much better at not ruminating on negative thoughts, and I’m learning to be more present in each moment which leads me to my next point…

Forget the past and future, the present is where it’s at. You have no control over the past because it isn’t actually real, all you have are memories of it (mind-blowing, I know!). The future obviously hasn’t happened yet but the present…oh, the present is a beautiful place. You have the power to shape it exactly how you want, to make it as enjoyable or as horrible as you’d like. Right now I’m at home visiting my parents. I could spend my time moping in bed thinking about all the things that went wrong this year or I could spend it watching a good movie with my dad, cooking with my mom, laughing and having fun. The present is amazing, so enjoy it, appreciate it, and stop trying to live somewhere else.

The quality of our social connections is the #1 thing that determines our happiness. Money, status, flashy cars…all that stuff means nothing if you don’t have good people in your life. Go out there and meet people who are interested in the same stuff as you, strengthen your relationships with the friends and family you already have, and prioritize experiences with the people you love over material goods.

Don’t let anyone make you feel bad about putting yourself first. Self-care isn’t selfish, it’s a priority. Ever hear the phrase, “You can’t pour from an empty cup?” Being our best possible selves also means we can show up for the people in our lives in the best possible way. So go ahead and draw yourself a bubble bath, pour yourself some wine, and get your hygge on.

Be grateful. It’s human nature to focus on the negative over the positive (those pesky evolutionary traits), but I’m willing to bet there’s a lot in your life worth appreciating. Nobody loves you? Your friends and family beg to differ. You’ve accomplished nothing in your life? Younger you disagrees! Practice gratitude as often as you can, even for the things you take for granted, like the home you live in, the food you eat, the fresh air you get to breathe. It’ll change your whole perspective.

Happiness is not something you need to chase. I can’t speak for those with depression or other extenuating circumstances, but for a lot of us, we already have everything we need at our disposal. Psychology shows that most of the tools for happiness are pretty simple: meditation, gratitude, exercise, sleep, and social connections to name a few.

On Self-Worth:

Rejection is rarely personal and is by no means a reflection of who you are as a person. Getting passed over for a job doesn’t mean you’re not good at what you do, getting dumped doesn’t mean you’re not desirable. You never know what experiences and ideas have shaped another person’s perspective of you and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can brush it off and find people who will appreciate what you have to offer.

Be kind to yourself. I can guarantee you will make mistakes and bad decisions. You’ll do things you’ll still regret years down the road. You’re not the only one. You can’t judge yourself on the mistakes you made in the past with the knowledge and experience you have in the present. Besides, those mistakes are the very things that helped you grow and become a better person.

And finally:

It’s never too late to build the life you want. It doesn’t matter if you’re 16 or 60, don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re out of time. Maybe you’re older than you would have liked to be when making a change, but you’re younger than you will be five years from now and that version of you is going to think you’re a dummy if you don’t take action. And guess what! You don’t have to wait for a new year to start over. You can start over as many times as you like—every month, every day, every hour, even right now.

Saying the Quiet Stuff Out Loud

I had to think hard about whether this was a post I actually wanted to publish on the Internet where everything is forever, or if I wanted to keep it to myself and work it out privately in my journal. I figured, though, the whole point of this blog is for you to see me untangle all the messy parts of my life on my journey to becoming happier, and it’s not a particularly honest journey if I show you just the tidy revelations, and not the far-less-tidy path it took to get there. So, here goes.

I’ve talked about my ex here before, but I feel weird, even dishonest almost, when I call him that. He was never my boyfriend, but we weren’t exactly casually dating either. I think we had what the kids these days call a “situationship.”

Over 14 months, we went on about ten dates. These weren’t “hang out for an hour or two and get dinner” dates. Our first date lasted 24 hours. After that, it wasn’t unusual for us to spend 6-8 hours together at a time. When we were doing long distance, we had phone calls that lasted just as long. In the first few months especially, my phone would light up with an “I miss you” text every few days. After he moved here, we had conversations about marriage and children—not necessarily with each other, but we both knew we were looking for something serious

But for the vast majority of our situationship (bleh, I hate that word), we lived across the country from each other. We’d only been on one in-person date before he’d flown back home and we’d started all this.

Given the unusual circumstances, it’s easy to see how two people with different ideas of dating and relationships could go in with such different expectations, a problem compounded by the fact that we hardly communicated about the important stuff at all in the beginning. Despite the distance early on, I would have been his girlfriend if he’d asked me. For him, the in-person stuff was too important. He couldn’t fathom the idea of starting a relationship with someone he’d spent so little time with.

I had been through a similar situation before I met him—though that one mercifully lasted only three months—and I’d wanted to avoid a situationship-type…well, situation. It’s hard being heartbroken and feeling like you don’t deserve to feel that way because it’s not like he was your boyfriend or something. Honestly though, after you spend so much time getting to know someone and investing in them emotionally, do the labels even matter anymore? It wasn’t two or three dates, it was 14 months! 14 months that included vulnerability and intimacy and so many deep conversations and wonderful memories.

The thing is, despite this post and the others I’ve written about my breakup, I’ve actually been doing shockingly great this past month. I started this blog, finished the second draft of my manuscript, got even closer with my family, read lots of great books, started practicing Stoicism, meditating and journaling regularly, etc. I spend the vast majority of my days thinking about these things, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about him, too.

I’ve gotten better (though not perfect) at not assigning emotion to these thoughts. If I think of a conversation we had in the past, I try to push it out of my head and refocus rather than dwelling on what he said or what I should have said. I’m okay having these thoughts because they’re normal and with time, there’ll be fewer and fewer until one day I won’t think of him at all. I’m also thankful that they don’t overwhelm me to the point that they incapacitate me and prevent me from being productive or being happy. Honestly, I’m proud of the healthy way I’m processing this situation and these thoughts.

But there are also thoughts I’m not so proud of. I listened to a podcast about breakups on This American Life today, and a writer who’d just gone through her own breakup talked about songs that have to do with heartbreak. There’s this one particularly pathetic genre exemplified perfectly by Dusty Springfield’s, “You don’t have to say you love me.” These are the sort of songs that make the singer sound like they don’t have any sense of self-worth or dignity at all, but you can’t stop listening because they’re saying all the things that you feel deep down. The things you’re too ashamed to admit out loud.

My feelings change day to day. Sometimes I think about how much I care about him and just want him to be happy, even if it’s with someone else. Other times (maybe even later in that same day), I’ll think he’s a jerk for playing with my emotions and wasting my time. It’s in moments like this that I have to contend with other thoughts that are so pathetic I’m ashamed to admit them:

I secretly hope he’ll realize he made a mistake
Every time I get a text or a phone call, there’s a part of me that wants it to be him
That if he asked me today to be with him, I would (without even hesitating)
That I hope things won’t work out with the girl he chose over me
I fantasize that one day we’ll meet up and I’ll be doing so well, he’ll realize he made a huge mistake

I hate admitting that these thoughts exist, because they’re so petty and I don’t want to think them. There’s always a sense of shame that accompanies them and a whole lot of confusion. I want him to still be in my life, but I also never want to see him again. I want him to be happy, but I also don’t want him to be happy. Somehow, both of these contrasting statements can be true, depending on the day.

Maybe it’s important to accept these ugly feelings, too. Sometimes, as I make progress towards my happiness, I feel like I’m brushing a shiny coat of paint onto an uneven, broken foundation. I’ve never shied away from feelings that made me sad or angry, but shame is a harder thing to handle. It takes the focus off what the other person’s done to you and shines a bright spotlight on what you’re doing to others and even yourself.

The fact is, these are my feelings. They’re not the feelings I want to have. When I look at them all written out like that, I don’t see my anger and disappointment and sadness towards him but towards myself. My need for him to forsake her and be with me has more to do with the hole I want to fill in my life for companionship and acceptance than my actual desire to be with him. It reminds me of this quote from Yogi Bhajan:

“If you are willing to look at another person’s behavior towards you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time cease to react at all.“

I’m not sure what the conclusion is here or even if there is one. I wish there was a lesson or way forward I could offer you, but I’m still trying to work it out myself. I do think, however, feeling these things doesn’t make you a bad person. It’s far more likely that you’re just hurting, and accepting that these feelings are there and that they’re normal, seems like a good first step as any.

When Kindness Isn’t Kind

I’ve always prided myself on being a good person. That means saying “please” and “thank you” to servers, being amiable when I meet new people, helping an old person reach something on the top shelf at the grocery store, spending hours making a homemade card for a friend, the list goes on.

One area of my life where that kindness hasn’t always translated into the best results for me is dating. Here are just some of the things my niceness made me do:

Go on an extra date with someone I did’t feel a spark with because the thought of rejecting them made me feel too guilty
Stay way too long on dates where I wasn’t enjoying myself
Not date other people while I was seeing someone I wasn’t exclusive with because I thought they would be hurt if they found out (even though they were doing the exact same thing)
Constantly rearrange or cut my own plans short so I could accommodate someone else’s schedule
Spend time and money planning surprises and gifts for men who would eventually tell me they’d fallen in love with someone else

At this point you’re thinking, that’s not being nice…that’s being a total doormat! And yes, I was absolutely a doormat, but it took some time and distance to see that.

This is the thing about kindness, you’re not really being kind if you’re hurting someone, and in all these situations I was hurting someone: me.

I was all too willing to put my own needs and desires on the back-burner. I did everything I could to make the other person in the situation happy, even at the expense of my own happiness. When I got upset that someone I was seeing didn’t communicate with me enough between dates, I swallowed my own disappointment, I reasoned that he had a much more demanding job than me and didn’t have as much time to text, I convinced myself I was unreasonable to expect more from him. (P.S. It’s interesting how all those people who claim to be bad texters magically find the time to text the girls they like).

I don’t know when I convinced myself that speaking up about what I want isn’t “nice,” but I wasn’t doing anyone any favors with that attitude. Eventually all my resentment would boil over, and I’d get frustrated with someone for not doing the thing I’d never asked them to do in the first place. Sure, in many of those situations they probably knew better, but in some of them they didn’t. By the point I confessed all the things I was unhappy about, it would often be too late. They were all ready to move on, but we would both sit there for a bit wondering what would have happened if I’d just been up front about everything from the get-go.

If I’m being very honest, my acts of kindness weren’t always motivated solely by my need to brighten someone’s day. That was definitely part of it, but it was also because I wanted people to like me. That’s why I shipped my ex’s favorite cookies to him across the country and set up a whole spa in my apartment complete with my very own proprietary spa water and diced fruit to help him relax when he was stressed from work. As it turns out, if someone isn’t investing in you, doing this kind of stuff isn’t going to make them like you more. They’re going to keep treating you the exact same way, and now they’ll know that no matter how little they give, you’re still going to spoil them with your time and affection.

Whenever a man I was dating would choose someone else, I would always wonder what the other woman gave him that I couldn’t. I mean, here I was leaping at every chance I could to accommodate his time, protect his feelings, do nice things for him, go out of my way trying to figure out how I could make our time together more special. What else could this other woman possibly be doing??

I’m pretty sure the answer is, she wasn’t doing any of that stuff. I’m guessing she was honest about her needs, and she didn’t invest 110% into someone who was only giving her 20%. She made it clear with her words and actions that they’d have to start giving more if they wanted to get more.

So if I can impart some hard-earned wisdom to you it’s this: asking for what you want doesn’t make you less nice. Expecting someone to treat you with the same respect you give them doesn’t make you less nice. Putting yourself first doesn’t make you less nice.

You can still be a good person and get everything you want. So, let’s all start being a little kinder, first and foremost, to ourselves.

The Missing Piece Meets The Big O

One of the first guided meditations I listened to after taking up the practice was about relationships.

I remember listening to the guide’s calm voice as she explained the plot of a popular picture book. As I listened, and then later read the book for myself, I was struck by the simplicity of the story and the powerful message behind it.

The book in question was Shel Silverstein’s, The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, and it goes like this:

Once upon a time, there was a missing piece.

The missing piece spent all its time waiting for someone to come find it and take it away. There were many that came along. Some did not fit at all. Some seemed like a good fit at first, but then the missing piece grew and they didn’t fit together anymore.

One day, the missing piece met someone new, that didn’t look like anyone it had met before. It didn’t have any space for a missing piece.

The missing piece told the Big O that it could not roll because it was a triangle and it had sharp edges, and the Big O told it that edges could be worn off and shapes change. The Big O left, and the missing piece found itself all alone.

But then, slowly, it began to move.

Eventually, the missing piece shaved off all its sharp edges and began to roll. It found the Big O and together, they rolled alongside each other.

The full book, which takes no longer than a minute or two to read, is filled with even more beautifully subtle messages about healthy relationships. It should be required reading for all children and adults.

It made me think about my own relationships and what I seek out in them. Back when I first listened to this meditation, I still had this idea that having a partner would be the thing that “completed me.” I depended on men to supply: my happiness, emotional support, my sense of self-worth, a social life.

Luckily, I’ve come a long way since then. I know, now, the importance of being your own, complete person. You can want a relationship, but you shouldn’t ever need one.

Sometimes, I still feel like that little triangle. There are days when my progress feels so slow or I take about ten steps backwards, and I’m certain I’ll never find myself rolling along on my own.

But the important thing is that I’m moving forward. Maybe that’s all we really need to do: take it one step, one day at a time, until there comes a time when we stop to look at our lives and realize we’re not missing any pieces at all.

The First Date

When I got dumped last year, the transition back into dating wasn’t exactly the most fun time in my life. Men would ghost me, stop responding, act flaky—and this was all before even meeting. I managed to schedule a date with a foot doctor, who even picked the place and time for our date, and then called me while I was waiting for him at the bar to tell me he wouldn’t be coming. I was pretty much ready to throw in the towel, so when I chatted with a random guy a few days later to set up another date, I was prepared for it to go terribly or for him to stand me up. It ended up being one of the best first dates of my life. We continued to date for the next 14 months. until he told me he didn’t want to see me anymore last Sunday.

Today, exactly one week to the hour that I had The Talk with my ex, I went on my first date with someone else. And it was actually kind of nice?

I did question whether I should hold off on dating, but to be honest I was ready to jump back into things pretty quickly. I’m glad I did, because there’s this huge worry that I think plagues everyone when you start dating again after things end with someone you really liked. You worry you’ll never meet someone who will make you feel the same way, that there’s no one in the whole wide world who is as attractive, charming, kind, funny, as the person you lost. Deep down you know you’re being ridiculous, but the problem with dating is that the jerky, emotion-driven side of your brain takes over and that little guy does not listen to logic.

Anyway, back to the date. I tried to go in with as little expectations as possible, because high expectations have screwed me over time and time again. We met at Central Park, and spent the next few hours walking and chatting. He was nice and funny, and we had a good time together. At the end of the date, we ended up going to Trader Joe’s because we both had to buy groceries. That part of the date was kind of awkward because we would both see each other randomly around the store while shopping, but it felt weird to acknowledge the other person. So yeah, maybe not the most romantic ending but hey, for a date in the winter during a pandemic, I’d say it was a good time overall. The most promising sign was that I didn’t think of my ex even once while I was out today.

I don’t know where things will go. I told him I would send him my phone number on the app where we met so we could text. I’m not the best at reading interest in other people, but whether or not it goes anywhere, I’m really glad I put myself back out there. This date reminded me that I can feel something for other people, and that dating in general can be fun and not this horrible, draining thing, especially when you don’t invest all your emotions in someone even before meeting them.

In the past, I’d probably stop dating other people altogether and pin all my hopes on this one guy working out. Luckily, I’m a little more experienced and wiser now, so I’ll keep putting myself out there and trying to connect with others. If this continues to go somewhere, great! If it doesn’t, all I’ll have invested is a few hours in the park.

For the first time in my life, I’m dating for the enjoyment of it, rather than the fear of being alone. It’s a great feeling, and I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for me.

Round and Round My Thoughts Go

You know what sucks the most after you stop seeing someone? You’ll be perfectly fine, and then you’ll see the most random thing that triggers a memory. Oh, there’s that restaurant we went to once. Look, it’s that movie we watched together on Netflix. There’s my couch that we used to sit on together.

Okay, that last one’s a stretch, but you get where I’m going with this. When I go through a hard time in my life, I tend to pick it apart like I’m picking at a newly-healed wound. It’s painful and messy, and logically I know I should stop if I know what’s good for me, but no. I’m going to keep digging my nail in there until I’m bleeding again and I have to start the healing process all over again.

That’s what it feels like when I’m plagued by negative thoughts. If they were new thoughts or served me in some way, I would accept them. You can’t ignore painful feelings, accepting and working through them is healthy. What isn’t healthy is having the same few thoughts circle around your brain over and over and over again, like vultures.

I’ve since learned there’s a word for this: rumination. I always just assumed everyone experienced this, but I’ve talked to people in my life after having hard conversations and they might spend a day or two thinking about something and then they’ll move on. When my previous relationship ended last year, the guy I’d been dating broke up with me over a phone call that lasted less than a minute. I replayed that phone call in my head for the next week. I heard it in my head while watching TV, while working, while spending time with other people. The only thing that broke the cycle was meeting up with him in person, so I could say all the things I felt like I didn’t get to say.

That’s what’s really at the root of all my negative thoughts. All these words and actions that have no outlet so they just sit stagnating in my mind and making me feel like I’m going a bit mad.

It’s still something I struggle with, but I’ve since learned some techniques that help me cope with them. Journaling is a huge help. If you can’t say what you need to say to someone, you can at least get the words out of your brain and onto paper. When I’m working through something, I’ll sometimes write pages and pages in a single day. It’s a lot easier to untangle a problem, when you can actually see what you’re working with.

The other practice that has made a huge change in my life is meditation. I’m still very much a novice in this area. I started by listening to guided meditations on YouTube, before deciding to try out a paid subscription of the Calm app. I’m not the greatest at sticking to things, but I’ve been pretty good about doing my daily guided meditations for the last few months. I’m also convinced that Tamara Levitt has the most soothing voice on the planet.

Today, I tried doing my longest meditation yet. I sat for a full 30 minutes, listening to my app’s nature noises and a bell that rang every minute to keep me focused. Of course, I live in New York, so I also had the wonderful noises of construction, honking horns, loudly-conversing passerby, and slamming doors to contend with, but I just thought of it as ambient background music.

I definitely didn’t do a perfect job, but after, my mind felt like it had slowed down a bit. When intrusive thoughts tried to push their way into my brain, I gently shoved them right back out. It didn’t matter how many times it happened, the important thing was I didn’t give myself time to dwell on these thoughts.

My hope is that with continued meditation practice, there will be fewer intrusive thoughts each day and I can finally stop focusing on everything but the present. I can’t change the past or predict what will happen in the future, but I have the power to shape my present. I’ve realized lately that the present is the only place where true happiness is found.

It’s a lot of work—and sometimes it feels impossible—but it’s also worth it, because those moments where my brain finally quiets down? It feels like a long-needed rest, and it’s pure bliss.

Finding Happy

So I think we can all agree that 2020 has been A YEAR. Besides all the general yuckiness of the last twelve months, here are some other things that happened in my life:

-My mom fell and broke her wrist and elbow

-My uncle went into a coma

-At 29 years old, I was diagnosed with a diminished ovarian reserve

-The person I’ve been dating for the last 14 months ended things with me

That last one happened about three days ago, and you know what? I feel fine.

Don’t get me wrong, I was definitely disappointed. I cried when he came over to talk, I cried on the phone to my friend for an hour after, but by the time I hung up I felt mostly okay.

That’s not because I didn’t care about him or I didn’t want to be with him. I did, and wanting to be with him had been one of my greatest desires for the last year. To give you a little context, we met three weeks after I just had stopped seeing someone else. I lived in New York and he lived in San Francisco. We met up and I was smitten from the start. We ended up spending the whole day together and then he flew back home. We stayed in touch, texting and occasionally talking on the phone. I saw him two more times over the next ten months when he came to visit the city, and then he finally moved here. I was so certain everything was going to fall in place when we were in the same city, but it just never worked. He was always busy with work or other obligations, we discovered we weren’t on the same page with our intentions, we didn’t communicate our needs often enough.

When he came over for The Talk, I wasn’t exactly surprised. I’d hoped I would be wrong, but things more or less ended the way I’d expected. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things I should have done differently, the things I could have done if only we had more time together.

When my last relationship ended, I fell into an unexpected depression. I didn’t get any sleep, negative thoughts cycled through my head all day and night, I didn’t have an appetite or motivation to do the things I loved. My family got so concerned they encouraged me to sign up for virtual therapy.

For a long time, the fear of falling into that depression again was the main reason I didn’t end things, even when I started to think that maybe I should. I cared about him and I wanted to be with him, but I spent a lot of time unhappy.

I recently started reading Expectation Hangover by Christine Hassler, and it made me realize that it wasn’t the circumstances or the other person who’d caused my unhappiness. It had been my own expectations.

During our talk, he said to me, “we’ve only hung out a few times over several months and there’d be weeks we didn’t even talk to each other or know what was going on in each other’s lives.” That just sounded all wrong to me, until I took off the rose-colored glasses and realized, it was true, we hadn’t spent much time together at all. I had dedicated so much of my mental space towards my expectations—imagining what a relationship together would be like, introducing him to friends and family—that he’d been this constant presence in my head every day for 14 months. Meanwhile, he’d been focusing on his work, his friends and family, hobbies, dating other people. He had a whole and fulfilling life outside the two of us, something I had neglected because I’d unfairly pinned all my hopes for happiness on him.

Luckily, a few months earlier, I started taking active steps towards focusing on my own happiness. I started meditating, practicing gratitude, took Dr. Laurie Santos’ online course on happiness, started listening to podcasts like The Happiness Lab and Hidden Brain, that focus on the psychology of happiness, and because of those things, I didn’t fall into a deep depression this week.

In the past, a disappointment like this would have devastated me, but here I am. Still full of hope, going through my regular routine, and able to find the joy in the everyday.

The experience opened my eyes to how much our happiness comes from within. In my previous entries, I documented my progress towards goals that I thought would bring me happiness, but if this year has taught me anything, it’s that happiness isn’t something to chase, but a thing that’s there all along if we can open our eyes to it.

As I learn more about happiness and the psychology behind it, I find myself wanting to share my experiences and lessons with others, so that’s what the main focus of this blog will be going forward. I hope you’ll join me on this journey and that together we can all learn how to be a little bit happier.