My One-Night-Stand of a life

Interesting piece in New York magazine, which I only heard about today from a friend.

It made me very sad.  And of course, in some ways, the writer and I couldn't be more opposite.  She is an impressive and accomplished woman, a few years older than me, who went to Harvard and has published nationally known books.  I went to mediocre state schools and have a good job, but not at all prestigious.  The people I graduated law school with don't look down on me to my face.  But I know I'm a tier down from them all.  And yet, I wouldn't trade my finances with her finances.  No way.  I own my house.  I max out my retirement each year and have since the Roth IRA was invented (although I did miss one year). I just switched to a fifteen year mortgage, and that's my only debt. I think I'm the only person at my job that when I go for my annual retirement counseling, the counselor says "well, you're fine for retirement, but if you're looking at wealth management...."  Which is really funny on my 70K a year salary.  I owe MaxEarnest money and won't pay him back until I get my tax refund, and I'm waiting on that to try and save a little bit of money for my Roth this year.  But my long-term financials are fine and  then I start to think, well, maybe I do want to look at creating wealth for my children or grandchildren.  I will inherit some money someday, and I've always known I wanted to put that aside for the kids or grand-kids   

And that's where my one-night stand of a life comes crashing down.  Wurtzel and I, well I can't say we're equally lonely because I don't know her life.  But I have a feeling that our dark-nights-of-the-soul may look pretty similar.

Wurtzel has never kissed a man when she wasn't completely smitten.  I don't trust being smitten.  I am smitten  by men who are hard to get.  I'm never good at playing hard-to-get; I love someone quickly and want to jump in with both feet.  The irony, of course, is that MaxEarnest was the least hard to get man that I truly loved, but he still lived on the other side of the fucking Atlantic.  And, deep down, we want different, not-mutually-compatible things.

I don't trust the men that make me feel like Bobby did or like John did.  I fall head over heels, very quickly, and then the rug gets pulled out from under me.  And so I try and date men like Tony who do seem sensible on paper.  I don't know what is the sensible thing to do.  I would be smart, if I only I knew the smart way to be smart.

Like Wurtzel, I don't want to die alone.  I don't want to get old alone.  Ideally, I don't want to have kids alone.  I never did heroine (like Wurtzel).  I've had a much more mediocre life, facing the fact that I'm not special.  I'm normal.  I fit in.  Which is what part of me always wanted, so maybe that's why I've never achieved anything extraordinary.  No agent is going to read my blog and offer me a book.  My cats love me.  My parents love me.  MaxEarnest loved me; still loves me even after I hurt him so badly.  Dotty loves me.  But Dotty is my best friend, and I know she has at least 4 women that view her that way.  

I've been cutting some people out of my life. In addition to Tony, I dropped one of the three women I considered a 'best friend,"  whom I've known since college.  She's been stuck for at least a decade, and I've been begging her to get help and she refuses and last month she screamed at me and hung up the phone.  I've decided that until she apologizes and gets help, I can't have her in my life.  I loaned her $3300 last summer and I doubt seriously that she'll pay me back any time soon.  And that's OK. I did tell her that I wouldn't loan her money like that again, that she had to start planning for the future, and living more like me and less like Wurtzel. I do think she'll pay me back, someday, if she can.  And if she can't, well, that isn't why we lost the friendship. I can miss a Roth contribution for another year.

If only my emotional life had the resilience of my finances.