My Thirty-First Year (And Other Calamities) by Emily Wolf

Author:Emily Wolf
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press

THE NEXT DAY, after reluctantly recounting my heinous voice-mail to Janie, I confided in her several things: (1) my humiliation; (2) my exhaustion; and (3) my unrelenting fear that the longer I delayed dating—which I planned on doing, because I hated everything about my first date—the lower the scant number of available men would dwindle, leaving me alone. Forever.

She handled my first two beefs deftly. The third took her a minute. “Let’s take a scientific approach,” Janie suggested.

“OK.”

“What percentage of your friends are in committed relationships?”

I thought. “Almost all of them. Ninety percent.”

“And your colleagues?”

Hmm. Even Chip was married. “Same,” I admitted.

“The majority of adults want partners and children,” Janie said. “Of course, there are exceptions—and thank goodness, because our society depends upon them in so many ways. But, for the majority, the search is biological.”

I liked this. Darwin with the save! I was still certain that, like the Hotel California, I would never be able to leave my worry. But maybe I could check out of it for a minute.

“If most people are wired to partner and procreate, though, doesn’t that support my concern that they’ve all done that by now?”

Janie shook her head. “You’re so young. The data doesn’t support your concern. At your age, it’s highly unlikely that all the men with whom you’d be compatible are partnered. And life doesn’t move in a straight line. Things happen. Look at you: You’re a catch, and you’re single.”

Calling someone who’d left that diarrhea of a voicemail “a catch” was a stretch.

“Zoe. Give yourself some time to regroup. You’ll get back out there when you’re ready, and really open to receiving someone.”

I winced. Was “out there” some kind of purgatory? And what if I were never ready? Janie seemed to believe that I would be a spouse and parent. But I couldn’t tell if that’s just because I was paying her.

______

26 Four minutes jogging, two minutes walking, repeated seven times, zero heart attacks.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.