A pit of despair

I'm not quite sure what's up with me at the moment, but I have to confess I'm feeling pretty low about my life. It sounds so stupid, as I honestly recognise that there's so much that could be worse for me ... and I mean seriously worse ... and yet here I am, in the middle of a great big slump I can't explain.

I forgive you now, if you don't feel like reading on to see how seriously self-pitying this gets!

There are so many things I thought I would have achieved by the time I was 30. Maybe my impending 29th birthday is what has triggered this, but I think I've been feeling restless for a while now.

Things I thought I would have achieved by 30:

• A sucessful career that I both enjoyed and was damn good at, earning over £50k a year.
• Be on the property ladder in my own house / flat.
• In a stable relationship with some nice guy.
  

Maybe that list sounds incredibly conceited to you, but I really, really thought, as I was leaving school and then uni, that all those things were completely realistic. And how many have I achieved?

Precisely none of them.

And how many of them have my friends achieved? For the most part, at least 2 out of 3. At the very least, they've all managed at least 1 of them, whilst I flounder around feeling like a bloody failure.

I have a good-enough career, but it just didn't pan out the way I thought it would. Even though I secured the same graduate jobs that my most sucessful friends did, my career has been up and down whilst theirs soared away to the giddy heights I thought mine would. This has been bought home to me this week by an email conversation with my old schoolfriend Koks, who is just about to start another glamorous new job as an investment fund manager for a media investments company in Soho, London. At a conservative guess probably on about £60k a year. And me? I work in finance too, but can't seem to apply myself to it the way my friends do to their jobs ... and consequently, I don't feel like I'm going anywhere fast, and I'm frequently unhappy in my job. Or at the very least unsatisfied.

I've proven to be a disaster with my money. I left uni with debt, and despite earning a relatively good salary, I'm in more debt now than I've ever been. How can I be an accountant that can't manage her own money?? Owning property looks to be further away from me than ever, and the only way it looks viable right now is waiting for inheritances ... that sounds dreadful doesn't it? Whilst my friends jump onto the ladder fairly easily with joint mortgages with partners, I plan my future based on my solo salary (since right now I can't see any potential for anything else) and wince.

Which brings me to my final failure. And please don't get me wrong - I'm not a total bunny-boiler, man-eating, romantic idiot, but I'm getting mighty disillusioned about love. Or ever finding anyone. It's literally been several years since anyone showed any interest in me. Do you know what that does to a girl's self-esteem? I actually seriously wonder what's wrong with me that I just don't seem to be at all attractive to the opposite sex. Long term relationships have never featured in my life, but recently, neither do short term ones. And logically, since I've lost several stone in the last year, you'd have thought things would start to pick up; that I'd see at least a spark of interest from someone, but no.

Friends tell me (I had this same old discussion with Bec last night in the car) that you find someone when you least expect it, when you're not looking, and then, in the same conversation, that I don't put myself out there enough, that I don't chase after guys, or make a move. I'm confused - which is it? Am I supposed to back off, and try and forget about the fact I feel desperately unattractive right now? Or throw myself at every man until one responds? God, I'm confused. Maybe I should just learn the lesson that talking to people who are smugly settled in long term relationsips is not a productive thing to do.

I think what this all boils down to, is my fear of the future. I don't think I'm so worried about not getting married / having children from a point of view of not feeling fulfilled. I think my feelings of failure on my 3 goals are firmly rooted in my morbid fear of being lonely and poor in the future. I have a small family, tiny really. There's pretty much just my dad and my grandma that I know well. Grandma's 94 and Dad's 70, and I worry about both of their health. I'm 28. There will come a point in the not so distant future when they are gone, and I will have no close family left. The way I see it, or fear it, happening - I'll be on my own, still precariously renting and balancing my financial fortunes on a knife-edge, and all my friends will be married, with kids, and thus totally absorbed in their own lives. I'm terrified that I will be left behind and lonely. I can't tell you how the thought of Christmas's alone depresses me. Holidays on my own. Old age on my own.

This week, I've been unable to stop thinking about it. Maybe because it's largely beyond my control. Even if I can get the money thing sorted ... money can't buy you love, huh?

I'm talking myself into an emotional funk, I'm going to stop now. Yes, I being sad and pathetic, but this is what is weighing on my mind this week.