what i miss

"This trip should be even better than the last one as this time I’m bringing comfortable shoes and my best friend." this was the last line in dooce's post yesterday about her upcoming trip to NYC.

i can't tell you how much this line made me ache. ache for the love and companionship that only your lover can give. the love that is different from friendship and family. the kind of love that i believe only a few successful couples on this earth have. the kind of couples you want to hate but can't because you're too in awe of the love they're blessed with.

as a single woman you are faced with two very conflicting beliefs: 1. that you'll be ok if you're single forever and 2. that the love of your life is out there. everyone knows half of all marriages end in divorce. and we all know the couples who stay married but probably shouldn't, or are so abysmally unhappy and/or dysfunctional it makes you glad you're single. the statistics are very much stacked against happy, healthy coupledom. but even knowing all this, you still have to hope, you can't help but hope. i don't know one single woman of ANY age, no matter what her resume, stock portfolio, or passport says, who doesn't have that hope. it's that bittersweetness of empowered singlehood.

i have no doubt in my mind that my singlehood is very much what i need right now. but i'd be lying if i said part of me didn't want santa to bring me the love of my life for christmas. yes i'm ok by myself but part of the reason i moved home was because i missed the value my family added to my life. so it stands to reason that the value of "your ultimate best friend" is something really worth wanting.

it's almost like if i hadn't loved my ex boyfriend as much as i did, i wouldn't have that to miss now. but i did. and i do. and not so much him, but the IDEA of that love. i miss believing in that love and the idea that it was real. it's much harder to believe in that kind of love with a faceless, nameless person you hope exists and who you hope you run into at the grocery store or something.

not to say my life can't and won't be full without a partner. but knowing what that kind of love feels like, tastes like, and smells like, i know deep down that life isn't the same without it.