Let my soulmate find me. And focus on having a great life on my own in the meantime.

I have 4 months left before I turn 35 and I’m really feeling sad and scared about it. Yesterday and today I just felt mightily blue and afraid that I’m going to be single forever and never have children. I know that there are women who have their first marriages later in life… but it seems like the men who are good and searching for partners have already found them and I’m just really afraid that I’ve missed the window of opportunity by wasting years on bad mistakes.

I don’t WANT to feel this way. I want to embrace my life, whatever form it may take, but I hate that soon I am going to be one of those women they write books for about how to use guerilla tactics to find a mate. Hell, I’m already one of those women, but the number 35 just seems so definitive. I will officially be in the latter half of my 30s. It’s just so discouraging and frightening.

I want to be comfortable with who I am and what my life is like, but I can’t stop thinking that my life won’t be fulfilling if I don’t have a family and that it will be a big compromise if I end up having children by myself. A compromise for me and for any children I might have.

I need patience. I need some renewed hope that things will be okay no matter what.

• It means don’t panic about being 34 and feeling like my shelf life is noticed more and more by all the eligible men.
• It means don’t cling to a miserable relationship just because I’m not sure what comes next.
• It means learn to go out and do the things I want to do, like taking dance lessons and playing guitar and discovering silent meditative moments and reading great books and being a good friend and being generous and creating a rock-solid career with which to support myself and the kids I just might have on my own if it comes to that.
• This also means don’t hide. Don’t stay home watching TV and movies and making dinner for my brother and visiting my mom and my sister.
• This means take risks. If I’m invited to do something I don’t feel completely comfortable with, if I don’t think I have anything to wear, if I think it might be boring or I might be self-conscious – say yes anyway. Go out into the world.
• It means resolve to have a life into which my soulmate will be welcome when and if he shows up, and if he doesn’t, it’ll still be a life well lived.