Commandments

I find myself at a turning point in my life. As long as I have considered myself an adult I have been in a relationship, and for the first time in my adult urban-dwelling life I am single. For me relationships were like dominoes, one fell almost immediately into the other. Each impact the catalyst for another relationship, another breakup, and yet another relationship in a very ouroboros-esque cyclic way.
Most people spend their twenties playing the field and figuring out who they are and what they want. I spent mine settling in, settling down, and settling for less. I've always been a relationship person. I like companionship, I like comfort, and I like predictability. I am a creature of habit. I like routine, I like to do the same things in the same order every single day.

The problem is that while most people my age were out becoming the people they'll be for the rest of their lives I was set in my ways before I was even legal drinking age. Now that I am single, and reluctantly so, I am at a loss. I don't recognize myself, I don't recognize my life, and I feel like I'm experiencing something that I should have already experienced. It's worse than de ja vu, I'm experiencing gay ja vu. I'm now thrown back into the gay single scene that drove me to stay in relationships in the first place.

When one relationship didn't work, I immediately jumped into another close approximation of that exact same relationship. I've surprised myself by how dependent I was on having a man in my life. I'm financially independent, fiercely self sufficient, bossy, and I'm right about everything. And if that doesn't make me a catch I'm also a control freak. I must be in control of everything in my life.

Since I moved to Chicago seven years ago I have never been without two things: a boyfriend, and a therapist.

As a writer I'm inclined to write about what happened. I'd like to delve into what in my past led up to this point and over analyze it and develop extended metaphors to explain why it all happened. But this blog is my attempt to put that behind me and write about what is happening now. If you want to know what got me to this point, you'll have to wait for a tell-all book.

I may be letting go and moving on but I'm still a creature of habit and rules. So my new rules, the commandments: 

1. No more bad habits 

2. No more men in the throes of a mid-life crisis 

3. No major commitments to anyone but myself

4. No more extravagant spending 

5. No more excuses