Been in love.
“But you are so amazing!” Ugh, have you ever heard that from your friends? Shocked that you aren’t already taken, so they overly complement you to make you feel better. It doesn’t work, so stop doing that. Please.
I know exactly why I’ve never been in love. I know what I want in the world: so I go out and take it. I want to travel, so I hop on one plane after another. I am making myself unavailable because I know no man will follow me around the world. My career would be the first to go.
#1: Finding love isn’t everything
I realize it’s a beautiful part of life, it makes your serotonin levels high, you can hold hands in the park, you have someone on the important holidays. I get it. Here’s the catch: if you have an exciting career like me, you have to drop everything to be the wife, pop out babies and all the sudden are demoted to the baby-changing station. One day you wake up and realize you gave up your dreams to be with the man or woman sleeping next to you. Resentment hits you, and before you know it, you want out.
Maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about. I haven’t in fact, actually ever been in love. I’ve just been a witness. I’ve seen too much of the reality to believe in the fairy tale love story anymore.
#2 Love takes away more than it gives
Love makes you another person, it makes you make terrible decision, impairs your judgment, and sacrifice a lot. My father left his family, home, and friends in Argentina to be with my mother. He left everything for her, and he has never really let that go. Resentment. To make a marriage work, it takes so much compromise, sacrifice, blood and sweat. I’ve seen my parents go through hell and back for each other in the 30 years they have been married. I have seen all of it and it’s not a pretty Martha Stewart picture perfect life. It’s hard work and the alternative to leave is always hanging there.
There was a time in our family when my father would have left us all to return to his life in Argentina. The poor man was miserable and just wanted to go back 20 years and live in the rustic mountains of his home. He left us briefly to backpack with some old friends and I thought he would never come back. He came back for my mother. Not out of love, but out of obligation, loyalty, because it was the right thing to do.
Let me explain. My mother is very ill. She has chronic spinal damage, scoliosis, that even after three life threatening operations, has not been fixed. She has chronic back pain accompanied by severe nerve damage. She lives with the pain, walks with a leaning torso, and is addicted to pain killers. How is that fair for her? She was a true badass: researching in Cuba during one of many revolutions and met her husband on an island there. She was a true beauty, despite her crooked spine. My father really loved her; loves her?
He stayed with her all this time. Through children, back operations, a hip replacement, and unemployment. I could have understood if he decided to leave her out of a desire to be free again and see the world. But he’s a raised Catholic which means that he doesn’t believe in divorce, and is too good hearted to ever leave her alone. I get it though. Sometimes he just gets tired of being her caretaker and just wants to be her husband.
Marriage is hard. Love can get us a through a lot, but not everything.
#3 What about what I want?
I realize this may sound really selfish, but I’m most worried about what happens to my job, my trips across the world when I meet “the one.” I feel like no one ever drums up reasons not to be in a relationship. I can’t imagine giving up traveling for someone. Maybe it’s my age or maybe I am just going to end up alone, but I really do fear a life without traveling . I can’t go for more than a year without traveling: I get anxious, bored, even sad. I get used to it, but I don’t want to have to get used to not traveling. In an ideal world, my husband would travel with me, with understanding, and excited at the prospect of a nomadic lifestyle with me. So until I find that, I’m not going to stop moving around.
At the end of the day, I’m really too young to be in love, to be married, to have a family. I realize that one day all this becomes relative, that one day I will be happily committed to another person (I hope?). I’m putting it off (as best as anyone can) until I know I’m ready to give up my traveling life. It’s a one person gig to live like I do. It’s the reality I’m at peace with, for now. When I’m ready I’ll do the wife and mom act. One day, just not today.
around0world 