28, Single & Very Fertile
“Did you know, at 27 there is a marked difference in fertility? And at 32?! This podcast said it basically nose dives,” my friend enunciates wide-eyed.
She looks like a quarantine angel with barely-there makeup and a sundress with cream puffs for sleeves. Think sophisticated Wendy a la Peter Pan attending a garden party. The ensemble makes it hard to suppress my giggle. Fertility is a serious issue, of course, but she’s definition youth.
Every Thursday night, I have a standing “FaceTime and Face Masks” date with three friends from college. When we rain check, I notice how reliant I have become on technology for basic human connection in this endless quarantine.
I’m in pajamas and glasses sitting in my childhood bedroom. The number of dolls perched in the bookshelves is astounding. They’re wedged between yearbooks and tiny, plastic swim team trophies and sometimes I feel like they’re eavesdropping.
One friend raises her eyebrows and then her glass of red wine for a swig. Her diamond ring winks at me.
All three have sparklers on their left ring-fingers worthy of the Fourth of July. While I… well, I’ve been spending my quarantine tiptoeing upstairs to blow dry my hair so I don’t wake my parents.
Never did I ever imagine myself moving home at 28. Unemployed and not on the Parisian sabbatical that I resigned from my job of 5 years for right before the pandemic struck.
“Ladies!” I say, finally releasing my laugh, “Everyone here is a spring frickin’ chicken. All of you are married to highly successful, kind men with whom you will have babies with if you so choose. May I remind you that I have seen all of two males since March?! One is my 82 year old father and the other is his gardener.”
Thinking of kids right now gives me the bad kind of butterflies. I do not envy frazzled parents with children under 5 unable to escape to their place of work or send their littles to pre-school. The time has never been more wonderful to be sans babes!
Regardless, I went from being the most hopeless romantic Angeleno always game for blind dates to only leaving my parents house in the Texas desert for groceries. My subconscious is working double overtime via nightmares where I get back together with cringey ex-boyfriends to figure out why I’m not, at the very least, dating.
I miss trying on 1,000 and one outfits only to end up back in whatever I wore to work and my entire wardrobe wildly strewn about my room.
I miss belting through a cloud of dry shampoo at my roommates that “HE’LL BE HERE IN 2 MINUTES! SO SERIOUSLY, WHO BORROWED MY STRAPLESS BRA LAST?”
I miss my ritual of treating myself to a mini bottle of La Marca if he is extra cute and I’m extra nervous. Now my prosecco pregame is reserved for whatever Real Housewives marathon is re-running this week.
My equally single friends can relate.
One friend’s finger might catch on fire from swiping on Bumble at such a pace.
A few have had first dates on FaceTime. (Two hours of trying not to flash the inevitable selfie double-chin to a complete stranger? Sounds like an arm workout.)
Another gave up on both men and loneliness and got a puppy.
While a dog sounds tempting, here is my mantra for you fellow lone rangers ––
“He shows up.”
I borrowed it from Sara Blakey, founder of SPANX and my favorite self-made billionaire. At the end of an interview on business nitty-gritties, there was a rapid fire where Sara was instructed to answer in as few words as possible.
“What is one piece of advice you wish you could tell yourself when you were in your 20’s.”
“He shows up.”
The host teeter-tottered and then said, “Okay, breaking my own rules here. What does that mean?”
Sara explained that she spent her young adult life worrying about whether she’d ever meet her guy. The woman is a powerhouse who singlehandedly got her unknown invention to be carried right out of the gate by the grand daddy of all department stores.
If she had known then that she’d meet her dream guy well after all her friends did, marry him at 37, and have lots of kids, what would she have done with that extra brain space?
So I’m echoing this to myself and to anyone worried they won’t meet their person due to this very isolating year –– HE. SHOWS. UP.
Go start your company. Write your novel. Kill it at working from home. Spend the time you always wanted to with your family. Sleep! My God, you never slept when you had so many places to be.
Anything but panic about something that will absolutely happen the way it’s supposed to.
I know I will go on dates again.
I know most will still be awful.
I know a few will be really interesting and make my mother say, “Oh?!” when I tell her I’ve agreed to a second.
I know future me will have a fantastic and very handsome and very, very fun boyfriend.
I know he’ll show up.
I just do.
My friends notice I’ve spaced out of our FaceTime convo by now.
“D! What are you thinking about?”
“Oh, um… how fertile I am.