What if I don’t find love by 40, I turn out to be the oldest one in my friend group to be so seriously single. What if I don’t find love because maybe I truly cannot love someone so much in that way, an ancient joke of settling and co-dependency. I’m 31 and my left hip hurts when I run and somehow everyone I know is 23 going on 24 and I’m sick of my hangovers progressively trying to kill me. I’m also sick of living a life where I still have hangovers. My ideal partner wears denim and makes a joke like “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” then smirks asks me to leave our spacious woodland cottage on the west coast, plenty of trees and kindness. My ideal partner is all the good parts of me - he is driven, curious, not contained. My ideal partner is the opposite of all my bad parts - he is patient, restrained, sweet. But the sun sets every day and sometimes I want to sleep just to move time ahead because time always seems to be moving  ahead. I calculated the months and days and I’m thinking there’s not enough time. I’m just living in a city of rat race and flakiness and college vibes and the rarest friend and I’m thinking what I’m meant for ran away from me just a few years back. I’m now tempted by the far away things I used to see.