Respectable

I figure I probably can't stay here too much longer
It's hard to explain to the respectable people
That I like to spend my days inside in my underwear
Burning my retinas with my laptop and scheming
I'm going to wear this spot on this rug bare
It's hard to explain to the respectable people
That this is how I work, this is how I create
And that despite my cat-like manners and
my cat-like disposition of purr and rub then hide
I really am getting somewhere in my life
By sitting on my fat ass
and napping in the pools of sun.

Damages

I am listening to AC/DC again
Reminds of headbanging at age 13
in the back of the HDCS cafeteria
where we held our school dances
I was shit for the Electric Slide
but excellent at whipping my blonde hair
hands on thighs, eyes closed
sounds blur, stars dance behind my lids
No thought to permanent injury
the chaperones roll their eyes
Can't be any worse than a night of drinking
Now I can only think of brains sluicing
sliding, crashing inside my skull
which now reminds me of all the things
I've forgotten over the years
Like dates and lovers and misplaced keys
that I blamed on nights at Redd's Tavern
on cold, staggered walks home through Williamsburg
and those five times I ever took cocaine
but perhaps it was those nights
in the HDCS cafeteria when I was
trying to appear cool and when after
when the lights came on and I crawled
into the back of Liz Horne's dad's Honda
I never admitted to headache
and would hold my skin tight to my skull
bar my eyes from the headlights
and rush off to bed. And silence.

tongue for folie

the music is much too close
my head aches and I notice
the absurd proximity
in a room so big and cavernous

i think i know where my glasses are
i'll wear them in a heartbeat for effect
but so strangely, so rarely for sight
with a tongue for folie, who craves utility

i am well aware of my propensity
for bouncing words and reckless
rhymes. (I should learn to edit)
but my day time and my real time
and my "be a grown up time" is
dedicated to order and precision
temperance and revision
and here I shall rebel

feathers stay in the breeze
for far longer than physics could allow
and leaves turn red and never brown
and here I love you forever
because it's the only place I can.
Or will.

Tidal

Wrapped
My finger around
Your fleshy soft hard spot
One then four

reaching, tickling thumb
Reach then roll
I tease, I lean and look
up in your eyes

Down, I shift
you part my curtain
of long black hair
We are waves

We rise and fall
like the lungs
of the ocean itself

On Turning 30 - By A Former Crazy Bitch

On Turning 30 - By A Former Crazy Bitch

I spent a great part of my twenties trying to convince once person or another that I wasn't crazy. Of course, as the years go by it's less of an issue. It's been over six years since my last suicide attempt, since I was hospitalized. So long that I had to pause and count backwards. So long that the answer struck me. I was only twenty-three. Today I am less then two months from my 30th.

Is it too early to say I'm a survivor? Is wanting that title anything more than pride? And if so, is that such a bad thing?

Every day I take anti-depressants. Something I acquiessed to in the summer of 2007 when I started having panic attacks and fainting in public from hyperventilating. It wasn't even depression that finally convinced me to a long period of medical maintenance. From the time I was first diagnosed (fresh after my first attempt) at the age of 19, I never adhered to pills for more than a few months at a time. The same brutal cycle repeated itself for a long time -- stability, off pills and/or reoccurence of problems, relapse. All in all I tried to off myself five times between 1998 and 2002. Four long years on a roller coaster.

It did get better. Mostly because being committed scared the shit out of me. I never was a girl who settled easily into trouble, who never spoke back or boldly fought authority. Maybe, in the end, it was the good girl in me that willed me to get my shit together. To end the melodrama and take care of myself. Not saying that those in crisis are stupid or lazy or weak. I think I was just fortunate to have a condition that could be wrestled to the ground. Others - many, many others do not.

I was thinking about this post Lawrence has on Facebook about how the feature "People You Know" can really bring back memories. I am constantly having people appear in that little box that sting my heart. While my friends today don't know me as that crazy, lost girl I was years ago (they might see glimpses occasionally when I am -- as I call it -- "sick" but nothing to the degree I felt for years on end), the people in my life at the time who abruptly (or not so abruptly) parted ways with me will always know me as "that crazy bitch Janice."

And crazy isn't an easy label to remove. For one, people assume that it's forever. Once a lunatic, always a lunatic. For many that may be true. However, I find myself lost in the face of someone I lost, someone that I cared for so much that I either hurt or they couldn't take me anymore and I wish I could somehow prove to them I've changed. Not that it'd make up for the pain they caused me by abandoning me or the pain i caused them by being non-trustworthy, selfish, and manipulative, but just so I could close that period of my life. So I could sit wrapped in a new lover's arms and not feel the need to issue a disclaimer.

Maybe this is the beauty of turning 30. It's still a thorn in my side that my ex boyfriend John probably remembers wrestling knives out of my hand and threatening to break my arm if I didn't stop trying to throw myself off the roof more than he remembers us making love and all the good times. It stings that some of the best girlfriends I ever had in college won't accept friend requests or answering emails. I honestly don't know what to do with the girl I used to be. Few photographs exist from that period - especially the darkest days in New York. It's probably a blessing. I don't struggle with those years as I much as I used to. I can meet new friends without having to fear that they'll find out and judge me. I wrote a poetry book about it. The fact that I was crazy is all over the internet. Only now people don't call me a victim or a psycho or a crazy bitch, they call me an expert. It happens more often then you'd think. I get asked advice. How can I give advice on a hell that I only escaped by the strength of my fingernails?

The fear remains though. As it should. The fear that I'll again "lose it" and the gig will be up. I'll be standing amongst my new friends, my new readers, and my new business colleagues naked, sobbing, desperate, clawing at myself. I can't say it won't ever happen. It happened a year ago. I was in an ambulance a year ago because my ex thought I was going to kill myself. Why? Because I told him. And honestly, I was.

I dont' know how to say these things to the people in my life who aren't weathered and experienced. I don't know how to say "I think you should know, I go crazy sometimes." I'm certainly no longer the seething, suffering time bomb I used to be. The most active and manipulative aspects of my personality disorder have melted away with time. I do not lie. I do not manipulate. (But alas when I feel cornered or that I'm going to lose someone I panic and then control over these deeply-wired defense mechanisms are lost.) Do I throw that on the table up front, casually mention it over dinner?

Or maybe. Just maybe. It's ok to say nothing at all. Perhaps I have finally reached a point in my life where my character and good heart stand out on their own and I can feel confident and trusting enough in the world to shred disclaimers. Maybe I don't need to hand my memoir to anyone new entering my life as if it's an owner's manual.

Maybe this will be the solace and beauty I will find at 30. :)

Anxiety

It starts in my shoulders
I find myself stooping, slumped
Blades retracted, too close
Cramped, I am withered and hiding.

Then my jaw, clenched, tight
I try to release and relax
opening and closing my mouth
like a silent little gold fish

It manifests through my arms
down to my finger nails
This buzzing, anxiety in my veins
I feel like I am shaking when I'm still

Rarely does it reach my stomach
Somehow it skips to my bladder
Sends me trembling through the house
I don't close the door anymore

My biceps are conductors
and the electricity prickles and pulses
I am fizzy, tortured soda pop
Threatening to erupt, to explode

I'm not always sure
why lightning strikes
or why I can't shake
the thunder

five dollar wine

I am domestic
I am five dollar wine
dusty, needed just for my alcohol
not so much my taste

Vineyards that freeze in winter
line the hay fields our Holsteins
used to graze in Northern New York.
My parents roll their eyes
at these weirdos from Connecticut
that bought our land
when the government was about
to take it away.

I drive by.
Slow.
I remember when my brother's trailer
sat in the middle of this meadow
not scraggly, half-dead grape vines
that I doubt can produce any more
than vinegar and salty tar

You breathe me in deep
Note the hints of pine and ash
gently, you examine me, jostle me
to watch me tremble
detecting the blackberry briars
the fresh sweet grass
dandelions, tiger lilies, april lilacs
With great nobility and respect
you ignore my plastic cork
that does not split under
the weight and force
you apply.

You point out my legs
the way I spread and grasp and
silk around the glass
the way I climb and crawl and agitate
on your bed, gently tumble
cotton, feather, satin, pillow

metaphors blur
I am poured, I am spilt
I am caressed, I am savoured
drunk, drunk, drank, drink

I am rolled around your tongue
dribbled down your chin
I am something, someone
to proceed toward with caution
and great enthusiasm

crazy down

this will be my new locked box
a diary, a treasure chest
this is where i will put my crazy down
and the pillow in which i will scream

lately i've been wanting to cry
for no good reason
there's nothing wrong
other than a buildup of words
pressing against my lips
it's a dam, my discretion
and i'd give anything
for someone to sit beside me
release the gates, catch the spew
and not judge as
this sea of illogic dampens
their shoes

I worry that I'll never find that
I really haven't yet, just
people with handkerchiefs
and reserved opinions
backward steps
and awkward grins

I lay, I cradle, I recline in my insane ways
I babble, I bubble, I proclaim

I was dropped as baby
face-first cement floor
saved by a car seat
shhhhhed as I cried
no blood, no bruise
but perhaps part of me
deep down in my baby brain
remembers the sight
of the ground coming up
way too fast
and being unable to move

snippet

I wish it was snowing outside
something interesting, meterological
I wish I could see something
besides rusted antennae
I hold my breath
something catches my eye
a key food bag caught in a tree
even the leaves in nyc
are plastic

House Flower

My mother called me a house flower
as young as five as I sat deep inside
summer outside, me with pen and paper
she'd shake her head, drink her iced tea
return to gardening or haying or mowing
and me, me young and already heavy
would look up as she slipped away
bite my lip and glance toward the window
but I am a house flower, a wall flower
a tulip, a cultivated hot house blossom
a rose, a daffodil, a lily, a bulbous bulb
I pull myself in, deep, I wrap and contract
I close my leaves and petals and insulate
I am thirty and I sit on the interior of a
cheap but cavernous Brooklyn apartment
high up from the street but blessed
with a view on all sides

Stir Crazy

Whisps
Too damn many loose whisps
of black hair no gel
nor best intention
can contain

And I am stir stir stir crazy
I blare songs with screams
Run from room to room
Then stop
Swing an invisible cane
waddle, saunter, skip
drop to my knees
exhale hard and flat

I extend, arms out far and wide
Across the dollar store tile i slide
I wrestle, I rip out your threads
I say aloud to myself
"I don't need to make sense
I don't need to be clear"
But I want to call you and
explain to you about whisps
and exhaled but silent screams

I want to say
I dare to say
that I don't edit
I don't revise
that words are my toys
and I can juggle for days

This house is empty
three cats
two fish
five plants
and a crazy woman
lying on the floor
working it out
for them all

Yes We Can!~

Do laundry.

*lays on the couch in a puddle of sweat gasping and panting*

However lugging a granny cart overflowing with clothes up the three flights of stairs we're not so sure of.

I need a boyfriend/helper monkey/laundry slave/pulley system/elevator/telekinesis or some shit.

*gasp pant sweat wheeze gasp pant sweat wheeze*

jabber

react
in tact
you are
and I usually am not.

i follow and
slide off sills
and cascade from
curtains
onto fake hard
wood floors
and reverberate
and demand
ruined subscriptions
and thrown away
prescriptions

i get the dry mouth
when you're not around
i get the high horse
when i fall to the ground
i get the shakes, the shakes, the shakes
i get the shakes, the shakes, the shakes

i like the taste
of the case
of tortured souls
i keep in my kitchen
near the sink
and i think
it'll keep me young

Gnaw

I gnaw at myself
especially when alone
I don't growl, no I don't growl
But I do gnaw
I like the taste of my flesh
the swirl of blood
on my tongue
that despite what others say
seems nothing like rust

I try to hide my hands
well hell lately I hide and curtsey
most every aspect of
this girl painted at least a
quarter black with dye
and spray paint and lust

I am more than you think
Less than what I fear
I am more than you think
and less than what I fear

Bite, gnaw, bite, gnaw
tear, no cuticles on me
no cuticles on me
and i swallow them
(and you)
whole

Bottom

You pat my bottom
As I climb the stairs
I shriek and spin
Whirl of raven and wool
I tell myself it's a compliment
A friendly reminder
of a growing sentiment
but blood flush blush
cheeks abloom
and I walk slowly, surely
hoping the hem of my coat
hides everything you can see
anyway

Janice-Ism

Funny story. (goddamnit)

Woke up at eight! Yay! For the first time in forever I'm up before noon!

I sit down and grab my to do list and start making the calls I needed to do -- call unemployment about a problem, call my doctor about a prescription issue -- and both offices are closed.

So it's just about nine am and I'm wide awake and almost everything I need to do I cannot (go to the post office, etc etc)

Oh irony. What a little bitch.

I Probably Am Not

I started crying tonight - suddenly, unexplicably, briefly - because I want a baby.

Moreso, I want a family. I want a husband to plan dinner for. Plan vacations with. To make love to at the end of the day. To fall asleep in a bed that is neither mine nor his but ours.

A friend of mine wrote me recently and talked about the beauty of having a family, of having her son. She said it's something I should definitely do, definitely try.

As if I had any control whatsoever about that. As if I could walk outside right now, at an insomnious 1 am, and grab the first fella I find and fall in love and get married and have babies.

So here I lay alone. Cartoons on in the other room and Star Wars pillow cases on my bed.

I'm not allowed to say these words in New York. For the most part, my friends don't even understand. We are sailing into our thirties and most of us still spend way too much money at the bar, have no long term goals, and are happy to fuck any tom, dick, or harry (or any hairy dicked tom) who comes our way. And I've been falling into this because it's easier to be distracted from the nagging pain and frustration of not being able to have what you want by getting what you can.

Good sex is exciting. It makes you feel momentarily special and beautiful. But obviously, I am not. Because here alone I lay.

Not to say that I do not love myself or that I am a bad person or am unloved by family and friend. I am well aware of my worth and my value. Most of the time.

But as I approach 30 the little farm girl I was for 22 years arm wrestles with the "sophisticated" New York City woman I've become over the past eight. The little girl kicks at an invisible stone, pouts with her lower lip. By thirty yes, I wanted a career and a book and to have had a luscious, beautiful life. But I also wanted love. THE love. And THE family. Things that to most seem like inevitiabilities. Things that to a sad, lonely, romantic, alienated little girl seem like salvation. The city woman tries to pretend this little girl doesn't exist. I can only speak of my biological clock in wry, sarcastic tones. In a way I need to reject everything I ever wanted -- in order to somehow get it. But maybe that isn't working. Fuck man. How do I go out into this world and say brightly and brazenly that I want to be loved, that I believe in life long committment, that I want children?

Maybe I have just been too afraid to stand tall with my desires. And maybe I have spent too long dating boys, not men, that have been too afraid to admit that they want these things too.

Or perhaps its' all a matter of timing and not fear. I want my fairy tale.

I probably am not any man's dream woman. And while the romantic in me demands no less than butterflies and explosions, the realist in me feels like a bird gathering sticks for an empty nest. If I build it, will it come?

Why is it that if I tell a man I want to be loved and to be a mother that I'm "crazy?"

Do I as a woman have to hide these things to "trick" a man? Why am I supposed to wear make up and sexy dresses that I don't every day? Why am I supposed to be on my best behavior? Why am I supposed to play a role that I am not? Why am I supposed to sit on dates that feel like job interviews? Why am I supposed to hide who I am, hide my past, hide my illness, hide my true and sparkling and beautiful self?

Then again maybe I haven't. And that's why I'm alone?

Sigh. I can't call it a quarter life crisis. I ain't living to 120. I refuse to call it a mid life crisis -- I hope to live past 60. Third life crisis perhaps.

I joke and tell my male friends at 33 I'm stealing their sperm and having their babies. And its' nights like this when it feels less like a joke!

At what point can I settle without feeling like I settled? At one point am I supposed to put away the romantic ideals of childhood and movies and settle for "clean hair, primal lust?"

I have the capacity to be an amazing mother and wife inside me. An amazing girlfriend. But.... how come I'm not?

Monday Morning.... Afternoon

First off, I threw out my back. So I've got this horrible stiffness and pain from my lower back down thru my butt and into my thighs. Sciatica and shit.

Secondly, my house is still a mess from Friday night. Word.

Thirdly, I somehow did something to piss off one of my friends and I'm kinda absolutely in the dark as to why. So it kinda leaves you with this sick, confused, helpless feeling. I hate when someone's mad at me. I mean I'm not perfect, I make stupid mistakes, and like everyone else (and admit it) I gossip, I do have some discretion, and fuck it, I don't get it. I'm a good person, I consider myself a good and loving friend, and *shrugs*. I really, really don't fucking know. So I'm kinda feeling beaten up and confused today.

Everyone

I just had a thought. In our every day lives we are so many things to so many other people. The woman I am in bed with a lover, the woman I am with my friends, the woman I am at work, the woman I am as a writer, the woman I am as daughter, aunt, sister, cousin..... and I feel that facebook makes me feel kinda schizo sometimes. I just want to be me -- the basis to all of those facets of me. I want to be all of those women at once and end the splintering. I want to put my best foot forward and chose my words carefully but I also want to be failed, ugly, scarred, wanton, reckless. I want to say that society doesn't allow it. That modesty and a failed sense of privacy prevents it. But I think it's just me. Me being fearful and afraid of what others would say.

Maybe in 2009 I will make an attempt to be that amalgam of roles all at once. To not censor myself. To maintain a strong center, to work on non-swaying, non-swerving values. Maybe I'm not ready, actually. I don't think my core is that strong or mature. Hmm. Baby steps.

The question I struggle with -- is it bravery or is it exhibitionism? Is it honesty or is it vanity? Narcissm or a need to share, to stop splintering, to just.... be?

Bachelor #1

I've been talking about it for awhile. But now, after receiving the following email I have indeed decided that it's time to start writing the book about all the horrible dates/horrible men that I've endured in my quest to find "Mr. Right." I think I'll do one every few days. Maybe if I get enough I'll put together a book. But for now... yeah. I wonder why I'm still single and then I realize oh yeah.... I'm a crazy magnet. Lucky me.

So yeah. Here's Bachelor #1 --

I'm too lazy to edit, so enjoy. It was in response to a personal ad.

Heya, my name is Paul. I'm a 25 year old full-time student and mover/census agent/delivery driver/demolitionist/constructionist/paintist/whatever-I-woke up-this-morning-thinking-I-could-get-paid-doing-er/ist. I was on CL posting my room share and am making my first foray into the personals I've heard so many interesting stories about. I live in E. Williamsburg--Mwahaha... sorry, Bushwick, but that's not half as ridiculous and hilarious if you ask me-- on the Ridgewood border. I love writing, music, and people, not in that I find most people to be good or even decent, but in that all people are interesting, have their own unique set of experiences and things to share.

Passionate, sensual, psychological, experimental sex. Generosity. Taking care of each other. That late night call, the conversation before falling asleep, that hug when the world is kicking your ass, that feeling that someone's got your back anytime, any place." I totally agree with you on this definition. We're young (forever, in my case... in the -at-heart kinda way, not the Tuck Everlasting kinda way), and we live in a city that's constantly in flux, I think all of those people clinging to rural. find a partner and be miserable with them for the rest of your life idea of love are fooling themselves, especially here. Love is something we all have to give, and should choose to share as often as possible with a person who's willing to do the same, for as long as both parties are ENJOYING each others' company.

Anyway, I could go on forever (I write, it's what I do....) but I'd like to be sure you're real and reading this. So... if you are the beautiful and interesting individual whose ad I'm replying to, give me a holler. It's a stay in and watch the snow Saturday, and those are always better shared. I'm not in Williamsburg, but I am just a few stops away on the L, and I own a car (a 94 Grand Marquis former limo named Layla who you must not be jealous of, for she is and will always be my first love [chronologically]), so distance is no object.

My response:

Hey Paul....

Did you manage to get out tonight?

I'm very very hungover and lying on my couch watching tv trying not to use my brain to full capacity and thought I'd write ya.

But one thing -- I grew up on a farm in a rural setting -- not everyone there believes in staying in a bad marriage --- was kinda confused by that comment, actually lol. And sometimes being in a relationship isn't always fun, ya know? I think, at that stage, it's about finding someone that you want to be with and fight with and fight for. But anyway, I digress.....

His response:

There has to be a basis to digress FROM for it to be digressing. But I put just one line of crazy bait in there and WOW! You went right for it! And that right there is how a writer checks if you're totally insane. Might wanna see someone about that.

My response:

I'm totally insane because as someone from a rural setting I didn't like having where I'm from classified one way? I would have picked up on it if you had said anything about anyone from a "rural" setting. It's a common city misconception that everyone from the country is backward and stupid and such. But based on your response to my quite innocent comment, I obviously shouldn't worry myself too much with what you think. What I said back had nothing to do with my "craziness." It was a response to a strangely chosen word -- which, as a writer (an actual published writer) I found interesting and was attempting to start a dialogue to see why exactly you had picked that word.

That was a really immature and cruel response. But at least I got to see right away that someone who is that mistrusting, that close minded, that judgemental and immature is not waste my time.

Oh and if having a healthy attitude about love, dedication, devotion, commitment, family, and marriage makes me crazy so be it.

Persephenous Blue (draft)

I wish I could reach inside
No pain, no blood
just open up my gut
and poke in and about

I want to hold my liver
up to the light and run
my fingers over its flesh
I want to make sure it is
alright and healthy
and only perhaps slightly
exfoliated by drink

And if only I could hold my
breath and pull out my lungs
Exhale into them
bronchia to lips
papery flimsy balloons
See if there is brown or
burn or tumor
Hold them to my ear
like conch and shell
ask them to excuse
one more cigarette

Lower, lower, low
Small and god-given
Ovaries in hands
Hold them to my cheek
pearl-like, delicate
And then I shrink
permeate
and I begin to count
I begin to inspect
I am persephonous
I am blue
I am nosy and erratic
I scream, I pull but not too hard
I juggle, I embrace
I hold you, egg, I smash you, egg
A gasp, a cough
it's time to go
softly drop, settle
bounce and swaddle
I grow, I leave

Sutures
Endless sutures
I lie and groan and sew
returning my potential
deep inside the dark
deep inside the murk
the mush, the blood, the gore
deep into the meat and sinew and bone
that is me and give it up
give it up
forever, for now

Obese (draft)

Gravity likes me
As I grower bigger
And stronger downward
It pulls.
I joke, I say
Stairs are my natural enemy
but as I climb
Thirty-year old joints
Grind, emit dust
swell and contract
breathless, I want to
condense and fade
and slither and drip
drop drip drop
like water back to the bottom
and pool.

I explain with a half smile
that the fat in my lower
back presses against my spine
and I blush as I confess
that I think the weight has
compressed my nerves
and leaves my pelvis
thrust forward, my body
leans and grooves in weird
positions and as I lie
awake at night I imagine
white fatty caulk filling in
the spaces between vertebrae
and swear I can feel this
oozing and liquifying of
my bones.

Thin is an adjective
but fat is a noun.
I am not me, I am fat.
I am not human, I am fat.
I am twice, thrice the size of who
I perhaps was supposed to be
and of the size of the girl
he left me for

The universe sometimes slides
into my pores when I'm not
looking and pump pump pump
fills me up, inhales, inflates
and I fill and I float
above you all then crashed
dragged, wrestled by gravity
and you see the girl stumbling
out of the tavern bathroom
smeared mascara, nicotine breath
she wears ballerina flats
easier on her ankles but
as she slides onto her stool
next to her beautiful and slender
friend she knows she is the ugly
duckling with open spaces
invaded and perceived
and needs to lose a hundred pounds
before she can again wear heels
without the fear of falling
down.

January Events

Happy New Year!

I wanted to write you all to let you know about some upcoming events I have this month.

Monday, January 12th @ 7:30 pm

The Second Coming of the Stained Glass Confessional

A night of music & poetry

Stain Bar
766 Grand Street, WIlliamsburg Brooklyn


Featuring:

Lawrence Fredericks
James Skidmore
Janice Brabaw
Joe Yoga
Leland Sundries

Hosted by James Kass

FREE


Friday, January 16th 6:30 PM
Tales From The Naughty List

Otto's Shruken Head

538 E. 14th Street NYC NY

Get Coal In Your Stocking This Year?

Come hear tales of your fellow sinners in this night of baudy, tawdry, and downright naughty literature, comedy, spoken word, dancing, and music.

Hosted by Janice Brabaw, Author of Universe, Disturbed and Former Phone Sex Girl

Featuring James Kass, Angel Thompson Georges, and Dig My Grave!


Monday, January 26th 8 pm
The Library Lounge
Biweekly Poetry and Prose at Telephone Bar

Telephone Bar
149 2nd Avenue @ 9th Street NYC NY
FREE!

I have been asked to read with three other poets. There's no cover. I hope you can all come!

Prudence Wright Holmes
Andrea Dangelis
Joel Allegretti
Janice Brabaw

New Publication

Just an FYI.

"Moshe" is being published in the latest edition of Poesis #2.

I knew something was being picked but wasn't sure what.

Excitement!

Sweet Jesus.

I am going to be 30 years old in March.

I just realized I have never been in a relationship with a man over the age of 24.

No wonder I can't find anyone!