Something I Need to Admit

I'm going to admit something, right now, that I've never actually concretely, succinctly admitted to anyone before. Don't ask me why, but I'm feeling just a little bit confessional today. Not so confessional, mind you, that reading this blog post will make you want to cover your eyes, plug your ears, or do anything except shake your head sadly. Anyway, last fall I did something I vowed I would never do:

I put much of my life--and some of my dreams--on hold because I was dating a boy.

If you're reading this, odds are you know me. And if you know me, you know who I'm talking about. But anyway, my feet are getting a little sore from kicking myself over it. The way it works, I figure, is this: when you're outside of a relationship, it's quite easy to say, "I will never stop achieving what I want to achieve because I'm dating someone." At that point, you're watching everyone else in their relationships--all of the wheeling and dealing, the compromising, the sacrificing that is going on--and you're pretty sure that you're watching a whole lot of insanity in action.

And let's be honest. Sometimes you are. But sometimes you aren't--because, after all, a working relationship always ends up being a compromise. People give up some of their individual goals to form new ones together and see if those work out. But I jumped the gun on this last one, and my decisions to put some of my dreams and ambitions on hold came because I thought I was riding an express train when I was really on a bus inching forward in the middle of rush hour traffic. No wonder I experienced the bigger jolt when he applied the brakes!

Now I'm starting to wonder how I find my way back to my dreams. And now, even worse, I'm wondering what exactly my dreams are; an insatiable wanderlust keeps eating at me, but I have no idea how to satisfy it. So in the meantime, on this spring Saturday, I am going to do the only thing that brings me much relief at the moment: I'm going to clean. Like there's no tomorrow.