Feeling Safe

My mind has been focused a lot on my desire for a relationship. It is really the one thing in my life that I have not been able to push through and figure out on my own.

I struggle with other's expectations. My parents, my friends, my co-workers. Sometimes those are verbalized, most of the time it is my perception of what they think of me and why I am single. I have never had a boyfriend. I've dated, but never let myself get past the surface stuff and really get to know that person. At least, that was my M.O. before I started the journey of confronting my abuse about 2 years ago.

At the very beginning of my journey, I found myself messing around with a good friend of mine. We were both drunk and I finally let my guard down enough to let someone kiss me. Yes, I was 24 and had never been kissed. Take that Drew Barrymore, I think I beat you! ;)

Finally! I was normal! I really liked this guy, so I couldn't believe what was happening! The alcohol served its purpose to keep me in the moment for a short while. But no amount of alcohol could keep my past from screaming into my thoughts. I stopped him. Gave some cryptic reason why I couldn't keep going. He was so sweet. Asked if I wanted to talk about it, and of course I said no. We just laid in my bed in each others arms, exchanged a few more kisses, then he left in the wee hours of the morning. I hated myself for speaking up. Why did I say anything? Who's to say it would have gone past just making out? Why? WHY DID I SAY ANYTHING?!

Things got weird after that. Awkward. Not really sure what to say. Finally I got up the nerve to send him an e-mail asking him what he thought about what happened and what he wanted to do about it. I was crushed when I got the "let's just be friends" response. I didn't see him nearly as often as I used to after that. I think it was the fact that he knew I wanted something more than what he did. Eventually things got back to normal, stopped being awkward and we were able to go back to being friends.

But every time I see him my heart aches a little. He makes me feel safe. He is one of the only male friends I have had that I truly trust. He is someone I can see myself marrying. He is such a good guy. I saw him Friday at the hospital when he came to visit my best friend. They were neighbors and friends since elementary school. I met him through my BF. Just sitting there, chatting, laughing like old times made me want so bad what I don't ever think I'll get. Him.

But even in the midst of realizing I may never get the relationship I want, it gives me hope. Every time I think of entering into a relationship with no certain person in mind, it freaks me out. Without a person to visualize, I can't imagine feeling the trust, love, or safety. But when I think of him in that position, suddenly a relationship doesn't seem so hard. So impossible.

I just hope I can find someone else who makes me feel that way.

Uncertainty

A good portion of my adult life has brought me face to face with extremely uncertain times.

I was 17 and just started my freshman year of college when Sept. 11th occured. I remember sitting in the lobby of my dorm with about 100 other students watching everything unfold on TV wondering if the United States was about to go "up in flames". Never had I experienced a feeling like that. Never again do I want to feel that way. I cry anytime I see footage of that day.

I was at home on a Saturday morning in February 2003. I turned on my TV when I woke up and the news was on and they were showing what looked like a flaming streak in the sky. Apparently I had turned on the TV in a lull in dialogue because it took what seemed like eternity for them to reiterate that what I was seeing was the space shuttle, Columbia. I thought it was a nuclear missile... not that I knew what that would look like, but I definitely thought it was something bad.

I was 19 when we "declared war", and I remember thinking "What does being at war mean? Are there going to be more attacks? Should I expect combat on my home soil? Am I safe?" All I had to reference was what I read in my history books about WWII and the Vietnam war. I had no idea what "being at war" meant.

My first half of my 20's were pretty stable in the grand scheme of things. Nothing as mind altering as the aforementioned, but then again I was away at college and I lived in my own world. *sheepish grin*

The first 2+ years of "real life" has been wonderful! I have a wonderful job; fulfilling, pays well, great job security. Then the Dow started slipping and I could see/hear the worry in my dad's face. A lot of my family's money is in the stock market. On a good day last year (while still in the 10000+ range) the Dow lost 100 pts and my dad said that that loss equated to about $100K lost for the family. Umm, wow. I didn't need to know that. I made the mistake of looking at my quarterly report for my 403b in December and found out that I lost over 1/3 of my contributions.

At 25, I am now experiencing the effects of a recession. It's extremely frightening for me to see how quickly everything seems to be falling apart. I've lived almost all of my life (as an aware member of society) in pretty prevalent economic times, so seeing the opposite of this is causing me to ask a lot of questions again. Is my job safe? Will my family be OK? Are we headed for another "Great Depression"??

Uncertain times bring up a lot of questions for me. Unfortunately most of them cannot be answered!