In the last few months, I've had various friends get engaged, married, pregnant, buy homes, and do other grown up activities that I have yet, if ever, to do.
It's no secret that I have a weird phobia about marriage and having children and just being a grownup in general. I have been proposed to once, had two long-term live-in boyfriends, and I am all about being in relationships. I'm good in a relationship. Not always great, but I enjoy them. So why the fear of the ultimate commitment, I have no idea.
A few weeks back I had invited some friends over for dinner. They just happened to have recently bought an apartment and we were sort of celebrating that as well as I thought it was time I started having grownup dinners in my not so grownup apartment. I mean, I've lived there for SIX years and the only entertaining I do is a Super Bowl party once a year and, you know, bedroom entertaining. But I now have a table that seats more than 2 and I am also a pretty good cook, or so I think!
I didn't realize how stressed out I got about having people over-not because I don't enjoy it but one of the things that my ex-ex and I used to do was have dinner parties and we had some sick kitchen stuff. He was slightly gay, and enjoyed trips to Willams Sonoma more than the average, well, anyone, male or female. We had every kitchen gadget you could imagine, and somehow managed to stuff them all into our 2x2 foot "kitchen" where we prepared elaborate meals like cassoulets and roasted chickens and root vegetables and pies and cakes of all sorts. Sadly, when we broke up, he got all the kitchen stuff save for some herb graters I bought and maybe a few old pots. So as I started in on my cooking for that night's dinner, I realized that I didn't have the right pan, or even steak knives. I literally had to run out to the 99 cent store and purchase - you guessed it! - 99 cent steak knives (3 in a packet!) and hope that whoever was using them didn't end up with a broken knife dangling from their hand. Quel embarrassment.
Anyway, I was dealing with all of those shenanigans and then the Birthday Present showed up, and I just verbally puked all over him. In the course of the day's preparations, I decided that he was not ready for a relationship (after 3 years...mind you) nor did we want the same things in life.
To be fair, I am not even really sure what those things are. I mean, there are definitely things that I like that he certainly does not (getting up early, sun, daylight, vegetables) and vice versa. But as I was crying like a lunatic at him and telling him all the reasons why he was so NOT into this, it dawned on me that one of the things I was agonizing over was my lease. It was up, and I was being given the option of renewing for one year, or two. I KNOW the right thing to do is renew for two. My emotions were getting pissed that I couldn't bring myself to have a conversation with my boyfriend of 3 years like "so, where do you see this in a year?" I think because, mostly, I'm not ready to have that conversation. It's like I want HIM to want to have the conversation, but I don't even know what I would say if we had it.
I tend to get very caught up in what others are doing. The fact that my friends are getting married, buying houses, having babies, and doing grown up things does not mean that it is time for me to be doing those things. See how I did that there? Talked myself right out of it :)
