I was raised by a strong woman who married young. A woman who spent her late teens and early adulthood raising my brother as a single mother. This same woman moved thousands of miles away from her family with such strong conviction and ambition as a young woman. She instilled some of my best characteristics into me by leading her life through example. And I will never be half the mother she is, but I hope to be half the woman she is. I was taught to be ambitious, to embrace my intelligence, to love myself and my body, to aspire, to put myself first, and to never let a boy get in my way.

And I never have. And I tell myself I never will.

Boys came, and boys went. There was always a reason

You make excuses for yourself as to why he isn’t perfect, why it will never work, and why you shouldn’t be with him. The scariest day comes when you find someone and the excuses stop. All of the petty reasons you didn’t stay with someone, or judged him by, just aren’t worth an aforementioned thought.

And God (or some other spiritual/religious icon) help me when that day comes.

I am a worrier. I am constantly at the state of either over analyzing or daydreaming. My current conflict, or might I say the most overbearing struggle, is my fear of being alone and my fear of compromising my aspirations for another person. Love makes you do crazy, absurd, and beautiful things that you didn’t know you were capable of doing. One of those things is its ability to blind you and let you sacrifice your own happiness, time, money, opportunity, or even go against your own morals just to see the center of your infatuation flourish and blossom. I am terrified of, and crave, that experience.

I just crave someone to share with.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I am only twenty-two. I am “jumping the gun” a bit, aren’t I? But I can’t help my thoughts and fears. Like I previously mentioned, I am a worrier. My recent tarot card reading even said so… and it also said that love is on the horizon for me…

I am not afraid of living in a castle alone with twelve cats, like Enya, single. I am afraid of loneliness, and I am afraid of sacrifice. I am afraid of never being able to find that balance between loving myself and loving another. And I am scared shitless of never finding my soulmate. And vice versa…

It’s a relief in itself to finally pin point the focal point of my reservations. Only time will tell my true fate. The key is to be open. I think these thoughts are natural. I am hoping with this article that I resonate with many other ambitious young women and men that are feeling the same internal conflict between achieving the most unimaginable personal aspirations and love. I guess in plain terms, love and success.

The psychic gave me two wishes to meditate on. And I bet you that every other person that has ever sat in that chair and was given the same instruction wished for some variation of the same thing, love and success.

But why does it always have to be an ultimatum?