It's hard when you're 36 and everyone else is holding their babies aloft like status symbols and you are alone on the couch cuddling the dog wondering what to download next.
Just like the illusion of some sort of career ladder to climb with a pot of gold at the end that will magically make all the trials worth it, this feeling of inadequacy because I am not part of a partnership, because I do not feel any clocks ticking apart from the one that urges me to keep pursuing adventures at any cost, is purely an illusion.
I'll admit it's very tempting to settle.
All around people offer themselves to you in different ways, often lacking. I'm tired of sharing my life force with people who only really take it from me.
Some tell me my standards are too high, because I often reject the codependent, the depressed and anxious, the victim mentality and the almost 40 and still don't really know who I am or what I want to do with myself types.
If you did a lineup of all the lovers I have had, you would not see a type cast. All races, all sizes, all kinds of faces. For all my talk about not settling, if I'm truly honest with myself I have made it far too easy for the some of wrong people to get close to me.
I am saying the words right now... I am about to ask the universe what I think secretly around 40 times a day inside my head.
Dear universe and stars and all the goddess power that is available all the technology and all the pure hope that I carry inside me... to you I pray.
I have done the work on all the train wrecks of my past and while some lessons will always continue to learn me, I have cried and I have felt and I have been real. I have also acknowledged the joy and I will not forget either side.
However for now I'm going into the future.
I allow these parts of my past to just be part of me, not the definition of me.
I acknowledge all the choices I have made as my own. I relinquish the need to control all the outcomes of the things that I manifest with intent.
I tell you now with whoever hears this as my witness that I am ready for an evolved love to be met head on and heart on by a brave man who is actually up for it. Who is willing and able to walk his talk.
I see that many people get caught up in my enthusiasm and make promises they have no intent on delivering. I am sorry universe but I will not stop being myself ever. I will just try to forge onwards, secure in the knowledge that perhaps somewhere he is out there walking his dog speaking into his phone similar words asking for a blessing from the powers that be.
I know that when I meet him I will not have to encourage him to be amazing.
Whoever he is and whatever he looks like he will be making plans and doing them towards his happiness.
He will not be financially dependent on me in any way.
He will have a group of friends and family as supports for him in anything he chooses to pursue.
He will know how to make people laugh and he will tell great stories even if he is a bit quieter about it than I am. He will bring to the table some amazing things and ideas and pursuits that I have not considered yet. He will also join me on some of my adventures just because they give me joy. He will be passionate, considerate, humble and content in himself. He will make me feel great just by being around him.
He will have his own baggage I am sure but it will not dictate his behavior all the time. He will be able to communicate with honesty and bravery even when it is tricky things on the table.
I don't care how old he his or what his background is or what he does for a living as long as he is relatively happy with his lot in life.
For the sake of magic and the need for being specific I will also state that he needs to be single and willing to have a relationship with me and live in my city or be willing to travel.
Dear powers that be I do not think this is too much to ask.
I guarantee that I will bring the same amounts of enthusiasm, love, positivity, honesty, and communication to whatever relationship eventuates.
I also maintain that I will not settle for the next nice guy who comes along or the next bad boy who says the sweet words.
This is my responsibility to the universe.
I know love comes when you least expect it.
I also know that being in love is part chemistry and partly a choice that two people make.
I know I have felt love in my life before and I will not settle for anything less. I also know that I am an amazing beautiful person whether I'm in love or not and I will be not only okay but incredible on my own regardless.
I release all doubt that a man with these traits is not out there.
I release all feelings that I may not be worthy of such love back into the cosmos.
With these words and whenever they are spoken or read the people who hear them will attest that I know I am worth it.
I am using this invocation as a modern-day prayer a call to the Galaxy, to not settle for anything less than amazing.
May every person who hears this and may all the forces out there witness the fact that I am in perfectly perfect and I am ready for a real love.
As above so below and it is done.
Taken by the author on her last day of being 35 years old.