Here is the honest-to-goodness truth (which long-time readers already know). I alternate between contentment with my life, my career, my place and my independence and overwhelming sadness because I want more, because I’m lonely, because I’m worried that this is all there is. If I didn’t know better (and if I didn’t recognize that my problems are far from the serious trials of the mentally ill), I’d think I was bipolar. In all honesty, mine is just run-of-the-mill disappointment in myself and with my priorities. Life is tiring and I tend to walk around dragging self-loathing sadness and bitterness along with me.

This feeling is hardly unique. I had a “what if this is the best I ever do?” conversation with a good friend and former colleague I envy for her put-togetherness recently and she has the same basic fears over different things. And just when I think being lonely and depressed is all I’ll be able to muster, something amazing happens and I look up and realize that, hell, if this is as good as it gets – eating soup and sweets and drinking Beaujolais and watching DVDs with girlfriends on a cold, cold night – then I’m damn lucky indeed.

During all of this going back and forth between contentment and disappointment, two big things happened: my college roommate got married to a wonderful man and my extended family came in town for Thanksgiving.

The wedding was bittersweet for me – I loved every second of being her maid of honor and felt so honored to stand witness to this marriage. I’d never signed a wedding license as someone’s witness before and, not to sound melodramatic, it meant so much to fill that role for her. I got a bit misty eyed throughout the night, watching them dance and share these insanely intense smiles and kisses and looks of love. I was jealous and I turned into semi-drunk, weepy unmarried bridesmaid by the end of the night.

A few nights before the wedding, I sat with her and we drank beers on their patio and she told me flat out – in a loving way – that I worked too much, that I don’t let people in and that I busy myself with so many other things that I’ll never slow down long enough to get into a relationship. If being in a relationship is what I want, she told me, something’s got to change about my lifestyle and priorities. I told her later that I wanted to get my life together and become someone who would be a suitable mate and she corrected me – I am a suitable mate already, I’m just not putting myself out there, she said. And that unconditional sweetness from someone who knows more of my flaws that anyone is why I love her and why she’s one of my best friends. And coming from her, something I’ve heard and even said myself many times struck a chord in me because it came from a place of love and concern and not from one of know-it-all lecturing.

Thanksgiving was hard. I am a terrible Family Pleasing Oldest Child and I obsessed about showing off my domestic skills by baking and cooking. I missed my brother and future sister in law, who are coming in town for Christmas. My parents aren’t fully adjusted to their role as semi-empty nesters (my sister still lives with them between semesters) and I felt them wanting to spend as much time as possible with their children in the house – I even got roped into spending the night at their house instead of driving 10 minutes back to my own one night. Being around family so much is just plain tiring. I’m constantly navigating between acceptable conversations (no politics) and issues (two years ago so-and-so was offended because of XYZ) between different family members.

Couple that with feelings of self doubt, and suddenly you’re taking everything much too personally and flinching even more than usual every time a parent makes a comment about wanting grandchildren. You can imagine about how big I felt when my grandmother suggested, in front of half of my family, that I take leftovers from dinner over to the 45-year-old divorcee next door and introduce myself because he might be looking to get married again. My self esteem tanked like the stock market.

My point? I stopped blogging because I didn’t want to have an excuse or reason wallow in all of this anymore. I could see where I was headed and the intersection of 29th birthday and a busy holiday season should be a place where I seek joy and not where I gather each little anecdote into a larger story about how, yes, Virginia, I’m still single.

And maybe I’m wallowing a little bit now, but that’s just for effect and explanation. The other night, instead of wallowing along in my apartment, I saw a concert and had dinner with The Banker. Instead of going home along and stewing in my aloneness on Friday, I had Thai food with two friends. I am plenty proud of many of the things I’ve written here and I will, I’m sure, poke my head around to gush or complain or offer an update. I will be monitoring my e-mail (I know, I owe people e-mail – I haven’t signed in for weeks) if you want to drop me a note and if you want to be notified when I post, you can sign up to get posts e-mailed via Feedburner.

Plenty of beautiful things happen each day and I’m going out to chase them for now.

XOXO, Charming

So, I’ve been using the Jergen’s Natural Glow Daily Moisturizer for about a week and I love it. A natural-looking glow, though I had to branch out past my shoulders and start using the facial lotion as well, lest I look uneven. I’m about the right color now, so I’m cutting down the daily use since I still have a month before the wedding. (Don’t want to look TOO tan!)

Oh, and I followed some great commenter advice and I apply it with some sweet smelling lotion because the smell was getting to me.

Also, while we’re talking about new products I love, I am digging my new leave in conditioner by Jonathan Antin. I bought the small bottle to try and I love the way my hair feels after I smooth it in. I’ve also taken to using the Brilliant Brunette shampoo and conditioner. A quick towel dry and then a dollop of “Leave-in Gloss Clean” by Jonathan Product and I either let my hair air dry if I have time and blow it out and finish with a few strokes of my straightening iron. My hair stays smooth all day long. The only down side is that the next day my hair looks too greasy to be believed – so I always have to shampoo everyday.

That concludes my beauty product discussion for today.

Need gradual self-tanner that won’t turn me orange, but will erase the White Stripes that have taken over my shoulders. I am opposed to tanning beds and would only consider spray tanning as a last resort.

Suggestions?

We fell out of contact over the years, though we both still lived in town. We were Facebook friends and he chatted me the other night to see how things were going. He just got out of a relationship, am I dating anyone. We should go to lunch, he says. He feels me out – what days am I free, where do I like to go. Asks for my number, texts me his and wishes me good night in a cute text.

And now it has been two and a half days and nothing … did I jump the gun by proclaiming it a date?

With an actual guy. Maybe.

Discuss.

I have the longest memory in the world about some things, you see. And slights by the male of the species are at the top of my list of “some things.” Sure, when I really like the guy, I will make all of the excuses in the world. But some rejections are just too embarrassing.

Enter The Engineer. Sure, our ill-fated, wine-soaked evening together was, um, two and a half years ago. Or that the last time he blew me off was a year ago. It doesn’t matter – he is friends with the Producer’s friends and I’d rather avoid being stuck in a room with him and a handful of other people when I should be enjoying myself.

But my friends were persistent. By e-mail, “Come on [Charming], you can’t work all weekend. You better come watch the game with us.”

Not wanting to admit to the real reason for my hesitancy about the evening and tell everyone I was holding on to a grudge, I instead relied on the time-honored tradition of prayer, as in, “PLEASE, please, please, Dating Gods, don’t let HIM be there. Any more reminders of my dating failures I might actually quit. For real this time.”

I walked up to the door, six pack in hand, imploring the Dating Gods to take a night off from toying with me.

And they did. He was nowhere to be found.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Until about half time.

“So I guess [The Engineer] is out of flag football for the season,” one guy said to the next.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, he just got out of the hospital today.”

“Poor [Engineer],” said the Hostess. “He just got out of the hospital from having a blood clot and his football team lost. Bad day.”

I kept my head down until the conversation was over. I felt like a total jerk for thinking mean thoughts and wishing for a reason for him not to come. I had another conversation with the Dating Gods on the way home and clarified, in great detail, that I didn’t actually need them to strike down those who mistreated me – no matter what I begged for in my moments of weakness.

And I am finally getting to stay in the new place because at long last it got power back. It has glass door knobs, which I didn’t notice until last night, and then I couldn’t stop rubbing them. And glorious wood floors that are covered with far fewer boxes than I’d anticipated bringing along.

I purged my life of so much junk. To Goodwill went four boxes of random kitchen supplies I never use, six bags of clothes I’d stopped wearing, 10 old purses, two old briefcases and two old messenger bags. Stuff I didn’t even remember having. Stuff that stayed in boxes for three years. I am so wasteful.

And, yes, I threw away some old shoes and still ended up with only 35 pairs of shoes not counting my two pairs of fuzzy slippers, which is not a lot of shoes AT ALL and that fact makes me want to shop. But I won’t (or I’ll try not to). Because the next time I move, it’s going to be into a place that I own (and, also, not during hurricane season).

XOXO, Charming

My Mom: They couldn’t afford as many shoes. And women just stayed home and had babies.

Me: So, the term “barefoot and pregnant” originated from a lack of closet space?

But eventually those stories get old. And I know because I live them. And they’re past old. They’re ancient.

I found a great new place with a great new landlord who was kind enough to give me a few free weeks to move. The place is smaller, but it has gorgeous wood floors and thick crown molding. It is surrounded by lovely houses and beautiful trees and a gorgeous neighborhood with uneven sidewalks that have already proven to be my downfall – walking down the street I faceplanted in my red patent heels, sending my work bag tumbling and ripping my cute pinstriped crops. Just four (or so) blocks from the park and a hop, skip and a jump from work, I feel as If everything is just perfect there.

And while simplifying my life to fit in my new, character-filled place seemed like a noble quest, I have found downsizing my stuff to be less fulfilling than I’d hoped. Most notably, this has been an exercise in reminding myself “this is why you still rent.” So many clothes I’ve barely worn, so much clutter of stuff I rarely use. Some people make major financial mistakes – buying cars they can’t afford, gambling away their money, opening too many credit cards. My biggest problem is in the small things and the dinners out. It is as if this year I woke up and said, “Hey, maybe I should save my money to invest it in real estate, yeah that would be a good idea.”

Sure, I say that in one breath and in the next I giggle about finally getting a new bed and replacing my hand-me-down one that is probably too gross for any human to have slept on and a new (albeit inexpensive) couch. I actually don’t feel bad about either of these purchases, as I let the knowledge of my goal of house-owning inform my purchases and picked pieces that would serve me well in a house later on. Plus, I’m sorry, I had a freaking spring poke through such a long time ago and I’m sure the time-tested “flipping the mattress” method wasn’t going to work forever.

The biggest change is the lack of closet space. I’m downsizing from a walk-in with built-in shoe shelf to one and a half small closets. Today I purchased an over-the-door shoe organizer and I was appalled to see that the largest one I could find held only 12 pairs of shoes. ONLY 12 PAIRS OF SHOES. (Unless you double up, which I can with some, but that makes the whole thing less shocking.)

Which lead to an awkward conversation with my Mom.

“Who has more than 12 pairs of shoes,” she asked incredulously. I looked down at the floor and shuffled back and forth, pleading the fifth. And she started needling me a little bit and asking me “How many pairs of shoes do you have, Imelda?” in this judgmental tone that should be reserved for more serious questions like, “How many men have you slept with?”

And I finally just said, “Enough.”

Because she can try to set me up with her co-workers and random guys she sees on the street. She can turn an unrelated situation into a discussion of my singleness. But no one – and I mean no one – questions the shoes.