i don't even know what i want Or the curse of having loved and desperately wanting to love again.

As a late 20s baddie, I relate to my peers trying to find love. We’re all in the trenches searching for a connection. “Should I use hinge, bumble, tinder?” (eww no). “But I really want to meet someone in person, but no one talks to new people in person and do I just go up to him, does he come up to me?” [You’ll find reading this that I will never be able to beat the straight allegations and I wouldn’t wish relating to dating straight men on ANYONE.]

ButI digress. Yes I can relate to all of that, however, I’m also unfortunately one of “Those” that centered their entire adolescence on one boy. This is a much smaller subset of people that dated the same person from high school through college, and then till about 23/24 years old. I didn’t finish college so maybe that’s the age you graduate at? IDK. 16 – 24, that’s 8 years. And that’s not counting the pining that started in 7th grade. When you spend so much time, especially that specific time in your life wrapped up in one person who ultimately turns out to be the worst, finding love in your late 20s looks a little different.

See because I know what love is. Versions of it anyways. I’ve felt the difference of young love at 14 versus the deeper passionate love at 21. Or the stable, secure, status elevating love at 24. I’ve mentally recorded the minuscule changes that happen slowly over time, continuously evolving, surprising you when you love one person for so long and can love them even deeper when you thought you already found the bottom of the well.

Love can feel joyous and electrifying. But it can also feel like you’re repeatedly being dunked under cold water, longer and longer each time. Testing you to see how long you can take not breathing. It’s spellbindingly warm and soft. It’s a viscous and spiteful snake that will latch onto you and bite down harder and harder as you try to shake it off. It’s all consuming, overwhelming, sharp, yet pure. It’s the drug I’ll always choose over and over to numb out my brain. Love is so tantalizing you don’t have to put your rose colored glasses on yourself, they just appear.

Now while I’m 26 and have only had 1 boyfriend (the 8 years stretch boy) I have loved more than 1 person. This person never knew and that’s a different kind of love. A secret pining, a silly little game I’d play in my head when they weren’t watching. Always wondering, always fantasizing if I just let myself open up, let myself fall from my predetermined track what would I find? You see I’m an earth dominate girl, I like routine and what I can predict. My virgo moon always keeping me determinedly set on what I thought I wanted, deserved, and made sense for better or more often for worse. And love evokes protection. So I buried this fragile love to stay on course, choosing the love that could take a beating. Feeling undeserving and protecting him from me the anxious, apathetic, alcohol abusing teenage hell that I was. (What a martyr I was at 17, *eye roll*)

You see what I mean though? It’s so fucking complicated and beautiful and messy. It can be exhausting feeling all the complexities all at the same time. Maybe I subconsciously avoid it.

So now I’m on the apps and going on the dates, I’m meeting the people. Some good, most very bad. I’m searching and connecting, putting myself out there, yada yada yada. But love remains elusive. A literal dream of something I’ve had before that I just can’t quite remember when I wake up. She slips around the corner just as I catch up, or as quick as I realize I’m trying to contort myself into a pretty future with Hinge guy #5. And as I was listening to Slim Pickins off Sabrina’s new album in the shower last night I realized I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT I WANT!

I know what I don’t want. Time, age, and an 8 year relationship have shown me. I don’t want to not feel like myself. I don’t want to feel unsupported. I don’t want to feel unwanted. I don’t want to feel like a bleeding heart that’s a burden to hold. I have a list of wants and “non-negotiables” but what happens when a person checks those boxes or most and I still don’t feel it? Then what do I really want? What will really satisfy me when I’ve known love and search for it in everything? Will it always be a comparison game or a craving for that elusive feeling? Am I avoiding even going there? Am I avoiding even trying?

Really I wait. Always on the cusp, staring into the dark praying something will tip me over the edge. I want someone to summon me into the bottomless pit, lure me in and never let me go. I want to feel joyous and electrifying and all consuming and overwhelmed and vicious and spellbindingly warm. I want to bite down hard and never let go. I don’t want to be able to breathe. I want something to protect. I want something I can’t avoid.

I keep thinking when I feel it I’ll know. It’ll be different but slightly familiar. I know the undercurrent so well, I know not to fight it when it comes to take me under. So I like the rest of you delete and redownload, then swipe, chat, get drinks, delete again, as cyclical as the moon. But I’m always looking under the surface hoping that invisible string will pull again, unavoidable.