What do you do when you grow up and realize the world is a more difficult place to live than you had thought.

I think people put way too much emphasis on romantic relationships. Whether it be liking someone, finding a girlfriend, a husband, what have you.

For example, when I broke up with my boyfriend, people didn't know how to treat me. Or they acted as if I was this wounded, broken thing they had to be fragile with. They didn't believe me when I said I was fine.

I even began to feel guilty and I wondered if there was something wrong with me because I was doing okay. Because I felt good. better.

And I understand to some extent. We had a great relationship for two years. So I guess I could see why people think I'm at a great loss. but that's a different story.

The thought that bothers me about all of this, is when did my relationship with this person, this human become more important than a relationship with God? If I were to tell someone that my relationship with God was suffering, they wouldn't be as shell-shocked or disturbed. Why? Is a dating relationship more valuable than a relationship with God?

Honestly, maybe it's because God is always there, but a person isn't as easy to win. But is that really true? Even if it is, it's not justified.

I just have felt a lot lately that there is more pressure, and more concern in life to find a mate than to ever develop the most important relationship. The one that would take care of everything else.

I hate the banality of this post. But I don't know how to write it. I just feel it.

What's the most important thing? What is that people hope for most of all? Let me tell you right now, if you try to find your meaning in life from another person you will be very dissatisfied. I say this as someone who was in love once. And it was wonderful. But it was hard and awful too. And it didn't satisfy me. It didn't fill this empty void in my soul that reopened when I became single again. I actually feel more satisfied with my life now than I did then.

I made a troubling realization recently.

I became aware of this strange, anti-analogous relationship that I have developed with Gregor Samsa. In Kafka's Metamorphosis, Gregor awakes to find himself physically transformed into a monster overnight. His family is disgusted and they don't recognize him at first, and never realize that he hasn't changed inside. It's very slowly that Gregor changes mentally.

I feel as though I've gone under my own transformation, but completely opposite to the one in the story. I haven't changed much in my outside appearance, but slowly and subtly I've become a monster inwardly. And it's something that I could hide from most people, even from myself.

No one treated me differently or were disgusted by my transformation; in the way Samsa's family couldn't see the human inside, no one noticed the monster inside of me.

But unlike Gregor, I have been granted the grace to change, even though I am much less deserving.