22 & not a clue

There is this viscious chicken or the egg paradox which comes with living in London. You can't get a flat without a job and getting a job is infinitely harder when you're sleeping on a friends sofa without your own flat. So when I lost my dream flat in Shepherds bush for the second time I realised I wasn't going to get it all. 

The trouble with being alone & single for an extended period of time is not that it gives you unrealistic expectations, but that it teaches you what you need. You need a man who asks how your interview went, who responds to his emails & who is sensible with his money. You don't want someone who talks about themselves, ignores their emails until asked & is forever broke.

Unfortunately the longer you spend independently fine tuning all the things you did badly in your formative years, the less likely you are to accept that shit from someone else should the opportunity for commitment present itself.

Accepting yourself and working on the flaws should teach you some compassion & patience, you would hope? Wrong. It teaches you life is short & other people don't work things out unless they're forced to. If you get into a relationship with someone who doesn't know how to be an adult how do you ever expect them to be a man.

Perhaps leaving him out to dry, whoever he is, for a little longer is for the best? Because frankly if you haven't sorted your own shit out then how do you ever expect another persons problems to work with yours in a relationship? People throw themselves together in dire hopes of happiness without ever truly getting to the bottom of what made them miserable or useless in the first place.

He may need to grow up, but you sure do as well. Take time to consolidate where you're going wrong with people, life, career or worst of all your day to day emotions. Only when you work those things through will you be in a place to meet your man half way.

I have been reading PostSecret since 2006. That is almost a decade. At 22 a decade is a long time. I have checked this site religiously every sunday since forever. Forever being 15. Because before that nothing really mattered. I have opened this webpage and found countless postcards which have struck a chord or rung true for me. They have comforted and given voice to thousands of black thoughts, doubts and secret happiness' that if you have never seen it before you cannot understand until you do.

The site gets updated every Sunday morning US time so I usually check it in the evening. It has always been part of my sundays for as long as I care to remember. I have two of the books, have written endless articles about it and given one memorably awkward classroom presentation. So today when I remembered to check it, this postcard was sitting at the top waiting to greet me.

Fate. I have always believed in signs and things happening for a reason. This is yet another one of those. This made me smile, I am not alone, someone else is in this lonely boat. Smile guys. We'll get through.