We publicly celebrate birthdays, romantic longevity anniversaries, and work anniversaries. We also mark sad anniversaries, like deaths and endings, but we do those privately and without support in many cases.

In the next few days, I have two anniversaries. One marks the end of a relationship, and one is my birthday.

Birthdays are generally a happy milestone, but we all know that some years are less happy than others. Most of us reach a number of years of life where we’re trying to put the brakes on. We’re terrified of 30, of 40, of 50 because of some assumption of what we should have accomplished by these dates, or what we perceive those dates to represent.

I never had a checklist tied to a birthday. No “get married by 25”, “kids before 30”, or “leadership title by 40”. I’ve always been kind of ambivalent towards marriage, and I never wanted children. As for my career, I’ve been lucky, pursued what I enjoyed, and have made good choices and had the support of excellent people. Inexplicably though, I find I am judging myself based on my peers who have the things I never strived for. My peers have been married for ten, fifteen, or twenty years. Checkmark – another human wants to hang out with you for decades on end. My peers have children they’ve dedicated their lives to. Checkmark – You created new humans who are doing things. Whether it makes sense or not, when I look at my life in relation to most of my friend’s lives, mine is different. And different feels bad.

I know everyone’s journey is different, and I should not compare my life to anyone else’s. But I do.

When everyone else is wearing pink pants, saying how awesome pink pants are, and I’m wearing green pants, and I like my green pants, but I’m the only one wearing green, it’s hard not to feel like maybe I’m wearing the wrong color pants. That lady in the green pants is weird.

I know that at 45, I’m only halfway through my life. But the laugh lines and grey hairs are more numerous and more visible, and I feel like my desirability as a woman decreases every day.

This may not be true, but it is how I feel.

Which brings me to my second anniversary.

On October 30th six years ago, I finally pulled the plug on an 11-plus year relationship that no longer made me happy, after considering it for about two years. It wasn’t a bad relationship. It was safe, and pretty comfortable. We had at one time been very in love. He was kind and supportive (as he could be; it can be hard to support a depressed person). We could have fun together. We had history. But it was not great. I don’t want good enough, just okay, or fine. I know that great exists; I’ve seen it. That’s what I want. So I broke off long-term fine to open the door for great.

Except great hasn’t come. My milkshake has not brought any boys to the yard. And to stick with that analogy, my milkshake is melting. Who wants a melted milkshake?

The last six years of unbounded independence has been a lot of meeting men that I’d love to be with, but who have wives, or long-term girlfriends, or short-term girlfriends, or who are stooped under the weight of emotional baggage, or who are singularly dedicated single fathers, or who have figured out that unbounded freedom is exactly what they want. I’ve gone on a few dates, and every one of them has ended in me being rejected by them. Every rejection bolsters the view of myself as either damaged, unworthy, unattractive, or otherwise all-around undesirable.

Whether that is true or not, it is how I feel.

I want to love someone and be loved back. Every rejection, invariably phrased as “it’s not you, it’s me,” tears me down a little bit. Were you ever not picked for the team in school? That’s how I feel. A loser on the bench. Some people are always picked for the team. Some people make it look easy, like, oops! I’m in another relationship!

I cut the cord on my previous relationship to open my life for opportunity in love that hasn’t come. I realize that absolutely anything can happen. I could come face-to-face with my vision of great tomorrow. I could also find a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk tomorrow.

I’m not saying I’d make a different choice. I have a very good life. My unbounded independence has allowed me to do so many wonderful things, and meet many wonderful people, to travel, to change. I made the right choice. He married someone else. I just didn’t realize that the romantic landscape would be so barren. Like opening a portal into a desert and having the portal close behind me. I don’t think I brought enough water for this trip.

So this week I don’t feel great, even though I don’t want to feel like this. I feel old and greying and unlovable and undatable and hopelessly single, despite knowing I have a pretty face, a great sense of humor, a (mostly) good personality, a sense of adventure, great hobbies to share, independent capabilities, and a well put-together life. I ask myself all the time though, despite all the things I just listed, why am I always rejected? Is it one or two specific things, like not wanting kids or a dislike of cooking? Does my refusal to adhere to traditional gender roles (I cook and clean and have the children, you mow the yard, clean the gutters, and drink in the garage with your friends) in a relationship¹ disqualify me? Or is there something indefinably wrong with me, something that can’t really be put into words, only sensed? Is it my unremarkably brunette, naturally curly and nearly always messy hair? My laugh? My shoot-your-shot attitude? My jean size? My penchant for preferring to hang out with the boys?

I’ve heard all the well-meaning advisements. Everyone is different. Live your life for you, and don’t compare yourself to anyone else. Beauty comes from within. Once you stop looking, love will find you. There’s someone for everyone. I’ve heard it all, I know all of it.

But that’s not how it feels.

I have a lot of work to do. Maybe I’m not “allowed” to find love until I’ve done the work? Then explain all the well-loved fucked-up people who have a shoulder to cry on. This isn’t schoolwork, and shouldn’t self-improvement be life-long anyway?

I need an Instagram account in the style of Humans of New York, but just for otherwise successful and theoretically desirable women who just can’t find love. If it doesn’t exist, I’m going to create it. I’d like to find a tribe of women like me who want the one thing we can’t make happen for ourselves. At least I’d feel less like the round peg surrounded by square holes.

I already know I’m not alone in my bottomless and persistent loneliness. Dating apps wouldn’t exist if I was. Or singles groups or speed-dating, or The Bachelorette. Speaking of which, no, I haven’t tried the dating apps. I’ve let several friends be the canaries in that particular coal mine, and I can’t handle what I view as a very likely opportunity for rejection, the volume of which I’ve never experienced before. If anything, I’d be more inclined to pay a matchmaker service, just to weed through the crap. “Where did you guys meet? ” “I bought him online.”

There is nothing to be done about this except for me to learn to be happy on my own, and forget about love, because I can’t make love (or fetch) happen. But this week’s anniversaries opened up a crack that let this sadness and insecurity and loneliness come to the surface like a ruinous lava. Every eruption ends, though. I have my first (virtual) appointment with a counselor on Friday. We’ll have lots to talk about.

Maybe I should meditate. Maybe I should start running every day or read self-affirmation books. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t, maybe it wouldn’t even help. But, low is how I feel right now, and my feelings are valid, and I had to get it out of my brain and into the universe in a palpable way, as a first step to clearing it.

If you love someone who loves and supports you in return, don’t take it for granted. If you’re in an unsatisfying relationship, and you don’t want to settle, cut the cord. And good luck to you if the freefall lasts longer than you might have expected.

I’ll feature you on on my new Instagram.

¹ I realize I am generalizing the hell out of traditional gender roles, but I don’t care.