Baseball analogies and, like, metaphors.

Every once in awhile, everyone gets hit smack dab right in the middle of their face. With, like, a baseball. With your nose bleeding, and head aching, you think, "Wait, what the fuck just happened????" I tend to have those a lot.

Single: Never in a million years did I expect to uproot from my hometown of Denver, Colorado to take a seasonal job at a summer camp in Boston.

Double: Then, never did I expect to fall head over heels in love with my job, friends and a boy there. Yes, there. I said it. I had the cliche typical summer romance.

Triple: Then, never did I expect my summer romance to turn into something bigger. I didn't anticipate not wanting to go back to Colorado.

But I did. My summer guy and I tried to make it work. We went through ups and downs, of course. Spent birthdays and holidays a part. At one point, I was in another country and somehow made it work via the amazing technology that exists today. Skype was our best friend. Texting became imperative. Phone calls an absolute. We'd have Netflix dates where one of us (Okay, usually me) would choose a movie and we'd start it at the same time and watch it together from afar. (Insert condescending "Awwwwws" here)

HOMERUN: We made it work until I made a rash decision to start nannying 2,000 miles away in Florida.

..... And I broke things off. I regretted it for a year and a half. Game lost, 3-4 in the bottom of the 9th.

Summer 2011, Slopapotomous at the Red Sox game.

By the way, that year and a half brings us to today. Where, like most girls my age, I'm enjoying being single. Hell, who doesn't enjoy going to a bar dressed up with your girlfriends, having a few drinks and not having a care in the world? But the rest of the time it's spent combing through past, present and future plans knowing I have that missing link.

Being almost 23, at any given time, I can log onto facebook and see one of three things 1) A friend just got engaged 2) A friend just got married -or- 3) A friend is announcing some big news a.k.a. a pregnancy or birth. To which I respond with an eye roll and exasperated sigh. Now, don't get me wrong here, I'm soooo happy for them. Except it makes me realize, I'm not happy for myself.

So many questions arise in such a situation. Why am I not in a relationship? Am I doing things right? My mom had a kid at this age, should I? Wait, what am I thinking? Why would they get married? They're throwing their youth away! Or am I? If I'm not getting married, in a relationship or having a kid, should I be doing something bigger with my life? Do I regret my past leading up to today where I have no prospects of marriage yet? Am I even ready? Probably not, because I'd be the mom who refuses to give up drinking even while pregnant.

What? If this is wrong I don't want to be right! 

I've played ping pong with these questions and answers a million times. I've gone over these same questions and answers with my best friends and other girls my age. But I guess sometimes we need to stop analyzing the past, stop planning the future, stop figuring out precisely how we feel, stop deciding exactly what we want and just see what happens. Fate is a crazy concept that we're not truly responsible for the course our lives take. It's all predestined, written in the stars. Maybe this explains why, if you live in the city, where you can't even see the stars, your life- love included- just feels a little more random. The craziest part of the concept, for me is, if our every man, kiss, heartache, moment, is pre-ordered in some astrology, cosmic catalogue, can we still take a strong wrong step and wonder off our own personal milky-way? You missed the bus where we were supposed to meet "the one," because you took too much time straightening your hair, or you left the bar too early before they were meant to arrive. What if you meet them, and think they are perfect for you yet you're too nervous to say anything and they are as well? Can we all make a mistake and miss our fate?

All I know is I am looking for love. Not the "I love them and I'm settling for them because I'm afraid I can't find better." Not the "love is learning to live with someone and their flaws" type of love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming can't-live-without-eachother- love. And I have a strange feeling, I'll know it when I have it. Because if I've already looked it in the face, and didn't board that train, then... Well, I'm screwed.

So for now, it looks like we're all stuck in the 7th Inning Stretch just waiting to see how things wrap up in the Series. I might be biased here but... I sure hope the home team wins.