Sam

I always say that I’ll get old alone. I feel like I grew up telling people, that I’m not interested in love. I’ve had my fair share of crushes but crushes are just...crushes. Not daring to do anything about it. Contented feeling giddy about any interactions but not too interested to make a move. I don’t mind. I’ll grow old alone, that’s my promise to myself. It’s my dream.

I dream of a slow morning, white noise from my favorite movie playing while I sip on my coffee. That’s how I see my future and that’s what I want for my future. Just me. I still think that’s the dream. I’m now 30, but my dream stays the same.

“What if you find someone?” I’ll never find them and they’ll never find me.

Because in reality I don’t know what to do with love. I don’t know what to do with someone. I don’t know how to act around people. I love my own company. Too much. I love my space. I love being inside my head. I love everything about being alone. I love to take my time. Without having to think about someone else’s time. I love the idea of being me around me. I love the idea of doing things on my own pacing. I love the idea of having my own space in my own place on my own time. I don’t think I want to share my time. Or my space. Or my thoughts. I love it so much that imagining being with someone else automatically ruins the whole dream. Because if you’re with someone, you have to share. You have to give something. A piece of you. And I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how it will work. I don’t have anything to give. My thoughts are mine. My space is too small to fit someone else. And my heart is too hard to pierce. I can’t break it for someone else. And I can’t be with someone. Because I don’t know how to explain to people.

That I have moments. Moments where I don’t want to breathe in the same room, or space. These moments take days, weeks, months. Not minutes. Not hours. That in these moments, it’s important for me to be alone. Really alone. Because I value my space. I value my thoughts. I value my slow pacing because all my life I have to rush things to keep up with life and I’m so so tired of it. And these moments, I can’t be someone else’s person. I will be unavailable. For days. Weeks. Months. I can’t be anyone’s person. And I don’t know how that would work.

Because even now, my own friends don’t understand that. My own friends don’t understand that I’m the unavailable friend. Always detached. Always missing. Always taking time. I’m losing them and I can’t do anything about it. I can’t change. I can’t do something about it but just watch them leave. I just have to watch it happen.

And I don’t know how that works for anyone. If it doesn’t work for friends then it won’t work for anyone else.

And that’s how I figured I’m not design for love. I’m not designed to be someone else’s girlfriend. I’m not design to be someone else’s wife.

And now I’m 30. I am lonely. I have to admit that. I am lonely. I’m lonely when I have to go home from work and it’s raining and I have to keep myself together. I am lonely when we have to attend a work event or holiday party and everyone has their own person to bring and I am alone. I am lonely when it’s midnight and I’m scared. But I’ll never feel the butterflies. I’ll never feel the spark. Or even the pain of feeling too much for someone else.

I have never been in love. I’ve never been obsessed with someone. Or cry because the person I am in love with is in love with someone else. I have never been hurt because of love.

I’ve never been cared for. I’ve never been in love before and I’ve never been loved by someone else. I’m just really here watching people do their thing. Like I’m just here to watch people live.

Sometimes I think it was because I grew up telling myself I can do everything alone. I am the provider at home. I am supposed to get my shits together. I have to keep up. Run so I can make things work out in the end because no one else would do that. I have to keep moving. I can’t stop even if I’m tired. I can’t stop even though I know I am lost in the way. I am built to be independent. That makes me wonder if I overdid it. If I became so strong that needing someone else is too much for me. And I feel like it’s too late now. It’s too late now to crave. And my dream is still the same. But I’m lonely. I don’t know how to make sense of it. That my dream stays the same, to live a slow morning by myself..and yet I’m lonely.

I am lonely. But the walls are too high now.

I’m so convinced that maybe there are really people who are not designed for romance. For the kind of love. Love is fluid. It comes in many form. Maybe..maybe romance isn’t for me. Maybe not everyone is designed for it.

I’m not supposed to ask a question here, but there’s really no question. But maybe I want to know if there’s someone who feels the same. If you feel the need to change something. Do you think there are people who are not designed for it? Would they be lonely when they grow old? Is it really scary growing old alone? Like what they all say when I tell people I’ll never marry.