I go to an alumni event, with lots of people my high school – older men mostly, as the school was for much of its history an all-boys school. One of the men is divorced, and another – happily married – is talking to him about it … and suggests that he and I might make a nice pair.

I recoil, rather awkwardly, at the suggestion. Nothing personal, I say.

I have the same feeling when I see the match.com emails – I no longer subscribe, but the emails still show up daily, with the same guys in them that I winked at a year ago. I try to visualize myself meeting someone – someone who actually manages to show up and is employed all at the same time – and even if I pretend this is possible, which I know isn’t likely, I have trouble mentally fitting that someone into my life.

It’s not that there’s no room.

No, that’s exactly it.

There should be enough room, but whenever I open the door for someone and say, hey, come on in and let’s share our space, somehow it’s only my space that ends up being shared, and shared, and shared, until there’s no room left for me at all.

I become very small, and compress myself to fit whatever space is left.

My life is some finite quantity. I want to fill the rest of it myself.

I’m just not sure what I want to fill it with.

As long as I can remember, my life has been filled with wanting. I wanted to be married. I wanted a family. I wanted a child. My life has never been filled with me.