the terrible twenties
The twenties have become to my generation what the teens ere for generations past...a time to explore and find oneself before settling down and getting ready to live the life that will take you into he years when your hair grows grey and the skin wrinkles. For some, the twenties stretch on for a decade or more into life and for others, it's a transformation that occurs earlier than that...for some, like me, seemingly waaaaaaaaaaaaay too early.
It's a problem that I face every day. In high school, I abandoned my childhood friend when I decided that I was going to start acting all mature and shit and they continued with sophomoric hijinks (sophomoric being pretty good for Freshman). In later years, I have lost friends to inevitable aging as I got sick of bars and parties and bullshit, wanting to entertain myself in more civilized ways...sitting down and talking over coffee and that sort of thing. I am, I think, a 27-year-old going on 38 in many ways and have always been one of those "ten years older than he is" sorts of types.
I am being reminded of this again lately through a friend. We get along famously. At no time in my life have I ever had someone that I can spend so much time together with a single person and enjoy every minute of it as I do with her...not wanting to say goodbye even though my eyelids can barely stay half open at 4:30 in the morning. At no time have I had someone in my life that I feel so open to...someone that I feel absolutely no need to keep anything from, knowing deep in my heart that she will still care for me even though she sees my worst. At no time in my life have I ever known someone that truly dreams the same dreams, feels the same feelings, fears the same fears as me as completely as she does. She and I share a most beautiful friendship.
As you can tell from the pronouns, this friend is a female and, my being a guy and all, feeling this way about a female friend, I can't help but feel that there can, is, or at the very least, should be something more between us. After all, on top of this most amazing friendship, I find her as beautiful on the outside as I do inside and she claims that I ain't too bad looking either. Though I would never trade in our friendship for anything, I can't help but feel that our friendship would make the most fantastic of foundations for something more. I want there to be something there.
For weeks now, I have beaten myself up because I just haven't been able to bring myself to express my "more than friends" type thoughts to her even though I wanted to. I haven't been able to put my finger on why, but I knew that I was afraid of something. Fear can be a funny thing, sometimes, when it paralyzes you for unknown reasons, but I think I have figured it out and it all comes back to this life-long battle I've had with being too ready to enter the next stage of my life before any of my compatriots.
The thing is, every time that we speak, every time I see her, she manages to say or do something that makes me feel that she doesn't want what I do in a relationship. I want stability, I want closeness, I want permanence. I want to settle down and begin a family, a career, and work my way into life. She constantly drops threats of moving away, half-mocks the guys she's casually dated for having been uncomfortable with her seeing other people, talks all the time of bar-room romances that meant absolutely nothing to her -- in short, makes me think that she's not nearly as ready to settle down as I am. There's this fear that what I want and what she wants are two very different things...this fear that if we were to explore the depths of our feelings for each other, that she wouldn't take it as seriously as I would. This fear that if we took steps in that direction, that lack of seriousness would lead to feelings of betrayal and distrust on my part...which would not only disrupt a Relationship in progress, but would seriously scar a friendship that is nearer and dearer to my heart than most any I have ever had. I fear losing our friendship so much that it paralyzes me, even though I can't help but feel that she and I could have something amazing. Really, honestly, truly amazing.
And so I sit here on the edge of fear and find myself waiting for some confidence in the thought that maybe I need not fear these things. That someday soon she finds herself willing to put aside her past and focus instead on the future...a future that I find myself hoping includes me in some major role.
Of course, now that I realize this it is something that I can talk about with her, and maybe find out if all of this fear is just my paranoid nonsense or whatever and if she might feel the same way. After all, I may just be wrong and she might just be looking for everything I'm looking for, talking smack about moving away and all for whatever purpose (I think we all know I sometimes make grandious predictions about my next steps in life from time to time). I hope so. When the opportunity presents itself for her and I to talk (she's out of town for a week now), I will update.
p.s. In case you couldn't realize, this is what's been driving me nuts so much in the past couple of weeks.
It's a problem that I face every day. In high school, I abandoned my childhood friend when I decided that I was going to start acting all mature and shit and they continued with sophomoric hijinks (sophomoric being pretty good for Freshman). In later years, I have lost friends to inevitable aging as I got sick of bars and parties and bullshit, wanting to entertain myself in more civilized ways...sitting down and talking over coffee and that sort of thing. I am, I think, a 27-year-old going on 38 in many ways and have always been one of those "ten years older than he is" sorts of types.
I am being reminded of this again lately through a friend. We get along famously. At no time in my life have I ever had someone that I can spend so much time together with a single person and enjoy every minute of it as I do with her...not wanting to say goodbye even though my eyelids can barely stay half open at 4:30 in the morning. At no time have I had someone in my life that I feel so open to...someone that I feel absolutely no need to keep anything from, knowing deep in my heart that she will still care for me even though she sees my worst. At no time in my life have I ever known someone that truly dreams the same dreams, feels the same feelings, fears the same fears as me as completely as she does. She and I share a most beautiful friendship.
As you can tell from the pronouns, this friend is a female and, my being a guy and all, feeling this way about a female friend, I can't help but feel that there can, is, or at the very least, should be something more between us. After all, on top of this most amazing friendship, I find her as beautiful on the outside as I do inside and she claims that I ain't too bad looking either. Though I would never trade in our friendship for anything, I can't help but feel that our friendship would make the most fantastic of foundations for something more. I want there to be something there.
For weeks now, I have beaten myself up because I just haven't been able to bring myself to express my "more than friends" type thoughts to her even though I wanted to. I haven't been able to put my finger on why, but I knew that I was afraid of something. Fear can be a funny thing, sometimes, when it paralyzes you for unknown reasons, but I think I have figured it out and it all comes back to this life-long battle I've had with being too ready to enter the next stage of my life before any of my compatriots.
The thing is, every time that we speak, every time I see her, she manages to say or do something that makes me feel that she doesn't want what I do in a relationship. I want stability, I want closeness, I want permanence. I want to settle down and begin a family, a career, and work my way into life. She constantly drops threats of moving away, half-mocks the guys she's casually dated for having been uncomfortable with her seeing other people, talks all the time of bar-room romances that meant absolutely nothing to her -- in short, makes me think that she's not nearly as ready to settle down as I am. There's this fear that what I want and what she wants are two very different things...this fear that if we were to explore the depths of our feelings for each other, that she wouldn't take it as seriously as I would. This fear that if we took steps in that direction, that lack of seriousness would lead to feelings of betrayal and distrust on my part...which would not only disrupt a Relationship in progress, but would seriously scar a friendship that is nearer and dearer to my heart than most any I have ever had. I fear losing our friendship so much that it paralyzes me, even though I can't help but feel that she and I could have something amazing. Really, honestly, truly amazing.
And so I sit here on the edge of fear and find myself waiting for some confidence in the thought that maybe I need not fear these things. That someday soon she finds herself willing to put aside her past and focus instead on the future...a future that I find myself hoping includes me in some major role.
Of course, now that I realize this it is something that I can talk about with her, and maybe find out if all of this fear is just my paranoid nonsense or whatever and if she might feel the same way. After all, I may just be wrong and she might just be looking for everything I'm looking for, talking smack about moving away and all for whatever purpose (I think we all know I sometimes make grandious predictions about my next steps in life from time to time). I hope so. When the opportunity presents itself for her and I to talk (she's out of town for a week now), I will update.
p.s. In case you couldn't realize, this is what's been driving me nuts so much in the past couple of weeks.
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