Ahhhhhh! You've been chosen! You've been chosen!

And though I am genuinely happy for her, I also felt painfully aware that I have been single for over a year now.

I know, I know, thank you, children.

I have fulfilled the prophecy I made so long ago.

But being single for this long has been interesting and hard and terribly lonely but also awfully fun.

Hanging out with couples used to be really infuriating, but now?

I haven't had human touch in a long time, you guys.

Just let me have this.

I mean, yes, every time a friend has gotten engaged, there is a tinge of...

Am I gonna die alone?

Are my 5 cats just gonna eat my body until what's left of it is magically discovered?

Are my expectations of love just so unrealistically biased because of the media that I spent my entire life consuming that I have no real idea of what companionship looks like?

And thanks to my doctor, I am also hyper aware that...

Your biological clock is ticking.

Tick-tock on the clock, but the party don't stop, no.

Woah, woah, oh, oh.

Woah, woah, oh, oh.

And yes, all my friends my age who are also single are having conversations like...

Oh, I am definitely freezing my eggos.

Ugh, that's just so expensive. I think I'm just gonna adopt.

Adoption is expensive, too, and also really hard.

I'll just marry a man-child then.

I can have both.

So in a mini freak-out, I tweeted: "All of my friends are getting engaged, married, or having babies,"

"and I'm over here just genuinely happy for them because I do not compare my journey to anyone else's and neither should you!"

And I'm doing my best to live by this because, you know, compare and despair.

And the more I embrace that the ends are in the steps I take, the more I'm able to resonate with this.

It was especially enlightening when I was talking to a very happily-married friend of mine.

It was sort of this like, "I want what you have" situation, where I was very envious of her stable loving marriage and she felt envious of my stable growing career.

We were both looking at what the other had with so much longing that we couldn't really appreciate what we had in front of us.

What are you doing?

Oh, just hanging out, watching TV with my husband.

Oh, man, I'm so jelly. I remember companionship.

What are you doing?

Oh, just hanging out with my cat, watching TV.

Ugh, that sounds so great. I remember freedom.

Wanna trade?

Plus, I have several friends who also got married and had kids cause they thought it was the right path that they should take;

but in hindsight, have realized perhaps it wasn't necessarily the right path for them at that time.

Sometimes they wish they'd waited longer.

Some feel trapped in unhappy marriages.

And some regret giving up their careers and feel unfulfilled.

And I say this not to highlight their unhappiness, but to remind you and myself that it's really easy to look at what someone else has and idealize it.

Whether you're achieving professional success or engaged to your person,

there are still gonna to be issues to deal with, feelings to sort through, and a constant awareness to not take for granted what is right in front of you right now.

I'm Anna Akana.

We're gonna get through this, I hope.

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