Twenty-Something: An Open Letter to Russell Stover All Dark Fine Chocolates.

Dear Russell Stover All Dark Fine Chocolates,

Thanks very much for supporting me in my time of need. I knew you'd understand. You always do.

I bought you just about an hour ago, drove around ALL OF FRICKIN CAMPUS trying to find a parking spot, and finally opened you at 12:55am. I have already destroyed half of the box and it has hardly been 10 minutes. I have class at 9am. I should probably be asleep, but you know what I'm doing instead? Eating chocolates, watching Bridget Jones' Diary, and wishing I could chug a bottle of wine (obviously can't due to previously mentioned class at 9am). You may be wondering why I'm doing this, and maybe why I belted/sobbed "Someone Like You" by Adele on the way home (on repeat, naturally). You might also want to know why I was willing to spend $9.69 on something I'm going to digest in a couple of hours when I only had $16 in my account in the first place.

The reason why is because a) another friend of mine from high school is now engaged, ON TOP of me being the maid of honor in my best friend's wedding next fall, which suddenly makes me realize b) how quickly we've all grown up and sends me into a spiral of depression and self loathing because c) I am single and d) am in love with a man who will never feel the same way, and due to this, unfortunately, e) I have recently been battling feeling of loneliness and losing hard (i.e.- trying to get over it and failing miserably, turning to chocolate as my only companion).

See Russell, it's not that I'm not happy for all of the people getting engaged. Well. Saying I'm happy for all of them would be a lie. I'm happy for a select few. And even that happiness is a little shaky. The whole thing stresses me out.

For some reason I always thought that getting married right out of college was what everyone was supposed to do, so I guess that's what makes me feel like my whole life is a failure. At some point in my green (read: naive) teenage years I came up with a plan: To have children by age 25. That gave me all 4 years of college to meet my future husband, for him to propose to me after we graduate, a year to be engaged, a year or so to settle into our marriage, and a year to try for a kid and/or 9 months to actually be pregnant. According to that plan, I am 4 years behind. I really don't know what made me think that if I didn't have my first child by 25 my "biological clock" would run out. If anything, at this rate my uterus is bound to stop working simply because it's given up hope of me ever reproducing. I feel like I walk down the street and potential mates (all males) run in the other direction.

Really though, what makes me feel like even more of a loser is now that I'm actually starting "adulthood," I've come to the conclusion that I want to put off having children for as long as is reasonable. Getting married is no longer something I want to achieve by a certain point, it's just something I hope to achieve at some point. I don't even care about any of that. I like being a selfish twenty-something wayyyy too much to give a damn. And that makes me feel bad, like my 14 year old self would be disappointed. She'd say something about how I've "lost sight of the mission,"or how I'm "going to end up being one of those fat old ladies who wears pastel sweatsuits and breeds dogs to AKC standards as a hobby."

So now I'm in this bizarre limbo where I'm feeling lonely and maybe wanting a boyfriend on one side and really enjoying my independence on the other. I often wonder if I'm the only one going through this.

mmm...roman nougat...

You know Russell, I bet when the right guy comes along, stuff will start to make more sense.

I just wish he'd hurry up and get here.