you get what you need.

that was going to be my clever connecting entrance to this blog post. (see last blog post for my clever connecting exit.)

however, plans change, and now i must start this post with this…

i was asleep on a blow-up mattress at the foot of my mother’s bed. there was nowhere else to sleep due to the endless stacks of boxes filling up the living room in my mom’s new red farm house. she had somehow heard me stirring from downstairs, and as i opened my eyes there she was, hovering over me.

she had that know-it-all smirk on her face that all mothers get when they think they have solved their children’s problems. there was something in her hand, but i couldn’t quite make it out through the glassy coating still sleepily covering my eyes.

“i read your blog,” she said with an empathetic undertone.

oh gee. i immediately knew where this was going. i quickly explained in a half-awake stupor that no mom, i am not wallowing in the fact that i am single, and no mom, the blog was not cause for worry. she stood there nodding and waiting for her moment.

“i have just what you need.”

she revealed a christian science pamphlet from behind her back. “a letter to someone in love” i believe it is called. a short reading about finding love in god and separating material love from spiritual love. i had seen and read the booklet a handful of times before (because she had already given it to me several times throughout my life). i told her this fact and watched her know-it-all smirk rapidly descend into defeat. i again had to dive into explaining where the blog was going. what my point was. for her to not feel pity over her daughter’s random rantings.

i think we are on the same page now. and so i shall continue with what my point was…

perfection gets harder as we get older. as expectations develop, we consequently expect things. (crazy concept i know.) our idea of perfection now meets head-to-head in a dark alley with all our expectations.

so i think we left off at college.

those four years where we are put into a holding tank called a “campus” and left to soak up everything we can. knowledge, friends, lovers, professional connections, hobbies, oh, and more expectations.

pause.

i just reread what i wrote last night. another rambling saga about my relationships that didn’t really lead to the point i told my mom i was trying to make. so i deleted it and am going to end this two part blog post with this…

my list clearly stated that i would never date a smoker. i get headaches from cigarette smoke. my last serious boyfriend smoked marlboro reds. a lot of them. and he was good for me. not what i wanted, but what i needed at the time.

and yet, after every relationship ends we return to the mold. our expectations grow higher, stronger. the image of perfection finds definition, and it is this definition that makes finding that perfection even harder.

some of you may have seen this recent article about us poor millennial yuppies. our expectations for work and life have far exceeded our reality. we are dreamers. you told us we were special and could do anything. we believed you. and now we are not giving you grandchildren because we can’t find that perfect soulmate.

the search filter on our hearts is a bit narrower. we clicked to open the “advanced search” feature, but after filling out all the desired criteria and clicking the search button, the beachball won’t stop spinning. the hourglass icon keeps telling us to wait.

just force quit. pretty sure that fixes everything and lets you start from a blank slate. before you carved that perfect person.